(fortteU HttiuetHitg ffiibtarg 
 
 3Iti|aca, ^tm Qorh 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 JACOB H. SCHIFF 
 
 ENDOWMENT FOR THE PROMOTION 
 
 OF STUDIES IN 
 
 HUMAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 1918 
 
Cornell University Library 
 D 511.S49E8 
 
 3 1924 027 809 429 
 
 olin 
 
'ffD h 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027809429 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 RACIAL PROBLEMS IN HUNGARY. By Scotos 
 Viator. 1908. With 42 Illustrations. 16s. 
 net. (Constable & Co., Ltd.). 
 
 (Czech translation, 1911, Brno.) 
 
 CORRUPTION AND REFORM IN HUNGARY : 
 a Study of Electoral Practice. 1911. 4s. 6d. 
 net. (Constable k Co., Ltd.) 
 
 (German translation, enlarged and revised, 1912, Leipzig.) 
 
 THE SOUTHERN SLAV QUESTION AND THE 
 
 HABSBURG MONARCHY. 1911. 12s. 6d. 
 
 net. (Constable & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 (German tran.slation, revised and greatly enlarged, 
 1913, Berlin.) 
 
 ABSOLUTISM IN CROATIA. 1912. 2s. net. 
 (Constable & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 THE WAR AND DEMOCRACY. Jointly with 
 A. E. ZiMMERN, P. Dover Wilson and A. 
 Greenwood. 1914. With Maps. 3s. net. 
 (Macmillan & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 (Swedish and Spanish translations.) 
 
 ROUMANIA AND THE GREAT WAR. 1915. 
 With Map. 2s. net. (Constable & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 THE BALKANS, ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC. 
 
 1916. 2Maps. ls.net. (J. Nisbet& Co., Ltd.) 
 (Russian translation, 1916.) 
 
 GERMAN, SLAV AND MAGYAR. 1916. With 
 Maps. 2s. 6d. net. (Williams & Norgate.) 
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALITY IN THE BAL- 
 KANS. 1917. With 4 Maps. 10s. 6d. net. 
 (Constable & Co. , Ltd. ) 
 
EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAV • CALCUTTA • .MADRAS 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TO KG N TO 
 
EUROPE IN 
 THE MELTING-POT 
 
 BY 
 
 R. W. SETON- WATSON 
 
 D.LlTT. 
 
 LECTURER IN EAST EUROPEAN HISTORY, KING's COLLEGE 
 UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
 EDITOR OF "the NEW EUROPE" 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1919 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 For the ten years preceding the war I had devoted myself 
 to the study of Central European history and politics, 
 especially the problems centring round Austria-Himgary 
 and the Balkans : and my work acquired added zest from 
 the fact that so far as the English language was concerned, 
 I was only too often digging in almost virgin soil. It may 
 be that I was also led on by the altogether exaggerated 
 significance assigned to my work by public opinion in the 
 countries concerned, which was quite unaware of the con- 
 trast between its own interest and the profound indifference 
 of the British public towards all such problems. That 
 during these years my views had to undergo repeated and 
 very radical modification is not a fact for which I need 
 apologise ; for few countries have ever been more fatal 
 to preconceived notions than the now vanished Habsburg 
 Monarchy, and a writer who after ten years of study still 
 adhered to his original views, would thereby stand self- 
 condemned. My first little essay, '* The Future of Austria- 
 Hungary " (1907), was designed to show the superficiality 
 of the thesis " that the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy will 
 collapse at the death of Francis Joseph." How far the 
 world has travelled since those days may be judged from 
 the chorus of approval which greeted my arguments against 
 the union of German- Austria with Germany (as likely to 
 
vi EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 endanger the latter !) and in favour of an amicable Adriatic 
 and Balkan understanding between Austria-Hungary and 
 Italy ! 
 
 It was only gradually that I came to realise the full 
 bearing of the Austrian problem upon the peace of Europe. 
 " Racial Problems in Hungary " (1908), which was devoted 
 to a detailed historical exposure of Magyar racial policy, 
 ended with the warning that " the fate of the Near East " 
 depends above all on " the course of events in Agram, 
 Budapest, and Vienna," that " the historic mission of the 
 House of Habsburg is the vindication of equal rights and 
 liberties for all the races committed to its charge," and 
 that '' the abandonment of this mission would leave Russia 
 suj)reme in the Balkans, and would endanger the very 
 existence of a Great Power upon the Middle Danube." 
 
 Magyar misrule in Croatia had already forced itself upon 
 my attention, but it was not until Count Aehrenthal's 
 annexation of Bosnia in October 1908 provoked a long 
 and acute international crisis, that I began to realise fully 
 the dangerous possibilities of the Southern Slav Question 
 for the general peace of Europe. Being in close contact 
 with certain political circles in Austria which were genuinely 
 Avell disposed towards the Croats, I continued for some 
 time to overestimate the prospects of Vienna initiating 
 serious reforms in defiance of Magyar opposition. Thus 
 it was still possible for me in 1911 to dedicate " To that 
 Austrian statesman who shall possess the genius and the 
 courage necessary to solve the Southern Slav Question " 
 a book (" The Southern Slav Question and the Habsburg 
 Monarchy ") which was already an extremely outspoken 
 criticism of the whole Balkan policy of Austria-Hungary. 
 In my concluding chapter I argued that Austria's " future 
 as a great Power depends " upon a solution of this problem, 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 and that '' the whole Eastern coast of the Adriatic still 
 remains an unsolved equation in the arithmetic of Europe." 
 " Croato-Serb Unity must and will come. It rests with 
 Austria to delay its attainment for another generation and 
 reap the disastrous fruits of such a policy, or by resolutely 
 encouraging Southern Slav aspirations, to establish Austrian 
 influence in the Northern Balkans by lasting bonds of 
 sympathy and interest. Upon Austria's choice of alterna- 
 tive depends the future of the Habsburg Monarchy." 
 " Corruption and Reform in Hungary," published earlier in 
 the same year, was devoted to a detailed exposure of the 
 methods -by which the Magyar oligarchy maintained its 
 monopoly at home and thus found itself free to give an 
 anti-Slav direction to the Habsburg Monarchy's foreign 
 policy. 
 
 When early in 1912 the situation was still further com- 
 promised by the suspension of the Croatian constitution, 
 I sounded a warning note in a small booklet, entitled 
 "Absolutism in Croatia," which, of course, passed unheeded. 
 Events took their course. The Balkan Wars, and above 
 all the victories of Serbia, transformed and infinitely com- 
 plicated the Southern Slav problem and made the perfidious 
 and inefEective policy of Vienna and Budapest more and 
 more apparent. By this time I was under no illusions as 
 to the growing danger of war, and concentrated all my 
 efforts towards arousing the (jerman-reading public, alike 
 in Austria-Hungary and in Germany itself, to a sense of 
 the grave issues involved. It was with this object that I 
 rewrote in German, and greatly expanded in the process, 
 my last two books, which appeared in 1912 and 1913 in 
 Leipzig and Berlin under the titles " Ungarische Wahlen " and 
 "Die siidslavische Frage." Any one who takes the trouble 
 to compare the English and German editions of the latter 
 
viii EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 will see that I was already like a drowning man clutching 
 desperately at any straw. The dedication already quoted 
 now ran as follows : " The English edition of this book was 
 dedicated to that Austrian statesman who shall have the 
 genius and courage to solve the Southern Slav Question. 
 At the twelfth hour this dedication is repeated. 20 July 
 1911-20 April 1913." In my preface I referred to " the 
 radically mistaken policy of the Monarchy towards the 
 Serbs and Croats," and argued that a further delay in 
 solving the problem " might be fatal for Austria." " The 
 Balkan upheaval forces Austria-Hungary to hasten her 
 easy-going pace and to work at full pressure, to make good 
 the omissions of the past. The immediate future wiU prove 
 whether Austria possesses the moral strength to solve the 
 problem of Croato-Serb Unity and to force Hungary to a 
 radical revision of its racial policy, or whether, false to 
 her historical mission, she thinks of abdicating in favour of 
 the Serbian, Bulgarian, and Roumanian national states. 
 This alternative specially concerns Germany, who might 
 easily find herself in the position of paying the political 
 debts of Austria." 
 
 During the year which followed I was reluctantly driven 
 to admit that good faith and serious intentions were alike 
 lacking at headquarters in Vienna : and the assassination 
 of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand — who with all his 
 faults represented a real driving force and was bent upon 
 a solution of the racial problem— removed the only man 
 at all capable of guiding events or holding back the machine 
 of state from the abyss. ■. 
 
 So long as war could be by any means averted, it would 
 have been nothing short of criminal to work for so radical 
 a solution as the disruption of the Hapsburg Monarchy : 
 and I lived in the slowly vanishing hope that a catastrophe 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 would be averted by internal reforms, such as would replace 
 the fatal Dual System by federalism on a basis of nationality. 
 But when at last Francis Joseph and his entourage, egged 
 on by Berlin, plimged Europe into war upon an issue 
 which owed its acuteness to their own incompetence and 
 bad faith, then it was obvious that the time for advocating 
 half-measures was at an end, and that it lay in the general 
 interest — indeed, in the very logic of things — that as 
 radical a solution as possible should be found for questions 
 which had so long kept Central and South-Eastern Europe 
 in a ferment. The causes to which I had devoted nearly 
 ten years of study were henceforth, for good or for ill, 
 bound up and identified with the fate of my own country : 
 and for me all the great issues of right and wrong in the 
 West were reinforced and strengthened by other more 
 distant appeals that cried aloud to Heaven. 
 
 During the first two years of war I devoted my whole 
 time to explaining by means of books, pamphlets, lectures, 
 and articles the significance of the war in its East European 
 aspects, which British public opinion was still only too 
 apt to dismiss as secondary. My main theses — which, I 
 venture to maintain, have been amply justified by events 
 — were : 
 
 (1) That the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and 
 Turkey were the natural and inevitable consequences of 
 the programme of Nationality oflGlcially proclaimed by the 
 Entente : nay more, that without this dismemberment, 
 the complete victory of the Entente was definitely 
 impossible. 
 
 (2) That the future of the Southern Slavs, owing to their 
 geographical position as an obstacle upon Germany's land- 
 route to the East and as holders of the eastern Adriatic 
 coast, was a problem of far more than local importance, 
 
X EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 * 
 
 and vitally concerned the whole Entente and the British 
 Empire in particular. 
 
 (3) That the Macedonian front was of vital importance 
 to us, not merely because of the political consequences 
 which its abandonment would have involved, and because 
 of our commitments of honour towards Serbia, but also 
 from the strategic point of view, as a 'means of shorten- 
 ing and winning the war, isolating our weakest enemies 
 and providing a means of access to Austria-Hungary, the 
 Achilles' heel of the Central Powers. 
 
 From the first it seemed to me obvious that the Pan- 
 german plan, summed up in the two catchwords of 
 '' Mitteleuropa " and " Berlin-Bagdad," could never be 
 defeated by a mere policy of negation, but was a challenge 
 to the Western democracies, alike on grounds of abstract 
 justice and political expediency, to produce a rival pro- 
 gramme. To my mind the territorial issues, though merely 
 the means to an end, not the end itself, took precedence 
 in order of time ; and these issues seemed to me to centre in 
 the creation of a New Europe upon a mainly racial basis — - 
 the reduction of Germany to her national boundaries, the 
 restoration of Polish and Bohemian independence, the 
 completion of Italian, Roumanian, Jugoslav, and Greek 
 national unity, the ejection of the Turks from Europe. 
 Such a programme was very slow to " catch on " at a 
 time when our statesmen were careful to avoid any lead 
 in foreign policy : and I found myself often regarded as 
 a dangerous agitator, bent upon what was disastrously 
 impossible and could only prolong the war and all its 
 miseries. Only very slowly did it dawn upon the public 
 mind that such a programme, so far from prolonging the 
 war, was the sole road to victory, to the overthrow of the 
 old order and to the establishment of a League of Nations. 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 It was becaTig6 tke small group to which 1 belonged 
 realised with growing alarm the desorientation of public 
 opinion and even of the press on all these problems — - 
 and, it is necessary to add, the abysmal ignorance of our 
 responsible statesmen — that in the autumn of 1916 I 
 decided to found a weekly review, which under the name 
 of The New Europe should champion the cause of " Integral 
 Victory," the Single Front and the Single Command, and 
 still closer economic and intellectual intercourse among the 
 Allies, with a League of Nations, and drastic all-round dis- 
 armament as the final goal. As confirmed Slavophiles, we 
 supported an advanced democratic programme in Russia, 
 a federal solution for the border nations, and agrarian 
 reform throughout Eastern and Southern Europe. At 
 home, while avoiding party politics, we advocated diplo- 
 matic, consular, and Foreign Office reform, demanded the 
 establishment of parfiamentary control over foreign policy, 
 and urged the invalidity of secret engagements or treaties 
 concluded behind the back of Parliament. We never ceased 
 to warn against a repetition of the methods of previous 
 European Peace Congresses, to claim equality of treatment 
 for big and small nations, to insist upon the incompatibility 
 of such doctrines as " Non-interference " and " Absolute 
 State Sovereignty " with the idea of a League of Nations. 
 Above all we pled the cause of the future League, not merely 
 on its merits as an abstract proposition, but as the only 
 practical alternative to universal bankruptcy and social 
 upheaval. It was just our profound belief in the need 
 for such a League that led us to advocate the full terri- 
 torial programme of European reconstruction ; for we 
 held that as the horse must precede the cart, so is satisfied 
 nationalism the first essential preliminary to a new inter- 
 national order. 
 
xii EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Though the contents of the present volume were written 
 at intervals during the war, the reader will, I hope, dis- 
 cover in them a certain continuity of political thought 
 which connects them with an earher and uniform volume, 
 " The War and Democracy " (December 1914), written in 
 conjunction with four friends — Professor A. E. Zimmern, 
 Mr. J. Dover Wilson, Lord Eustace Percy, and Mr. A. 
 Greenwood. This latter was dedicated to the Workers' 
 Educational Association, and it is to their members that 
 I would fain offer its successor, if they wiU accept it from me. 
 
 One of my main hopes for the future is that the working 
 classes of this country will take an increasingly active 
 and intelligent interest in foreign politics. They already 
 possess the necessary political power, and on the day when 
 they have acquired the knowledge which will enable them 
 to use that power, they will exercise a decisive control 
 over foreign policy. Such a development seems to me 
 both possible and eminently desirable. The war has cured 
 me of any lingering illusions regarding " the Old diplomacy," 
 and has shown me that the supreme illusion of all is to 
 imagine that the class which at present controls foreign 
 policy is either efficient or informed. On the contrary, 
 their ignorance of the very elements of most foreign problems 
 has revealed itself time after time during this war and 
 has indeed most assuredly prolonged its course, while to-day 
 their renewed blunders are perpetuating chaos in Russia, 
 Hungary, and elsewhere. 
 
 The only cure for the present situation is the growth 
 of knowledge about foreign countries, and of the conscious- 
 ness that foreign policy is not a monopoly of the few, but 
 the direct and vital concern of every man and woman 
 in these islands. For upon it depends the issue of peace 
 and war, and millions have died in battle since 1914, 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 because the last generation refused to interest itself in 
 international politics and hugged itself in the fancied 
 security conferred by a strip of narrow sea. It is in this 
 direction that the W.E.A. can do invaluable work for the 
 future ; and if this book can but contribute towards 
 widening their field of studies, it will not have appeared 
 in vain. 
 
 I cannot close this preface without expressing the 
 immense debt which I owe to the four friends with whom 
 I acted in closest co-operation in all my literary work 
 during the past four years — Mr. H. Wickham Steed (now 
 editor of The Times), whose unrivalled knowledge of inter- 
 national politics helped us at every turn : Mr. A. F. Whyte, 
 who, by taking 'up the editorship of The New Europe at a 
 few days' notice and replacing me throughout my period 
 of military service, saved the paper from certain extinction : 
 Mr. R. M. Burrows (Principal of King's College), whose 
 settled policy it has been to provide a university centre for 
 the study of intellectual and political movements on the 
 Continent : and Professor T. G. Masaryk (now President 
 of the Czecho-Slovak Republic), without whose constant 
 incentive and encouragement The New Europe might never 
 have come into being, and who, even at the most discouraging 
 period of his London exile, never lost faith in the full pro- 
 gramme of reconstruction. I am also most grateful to my 
 friend, Mr. George Glasgow, sub-editor of The New Europe, 
 who during my absence abroad saw the proofs of the 
 present volume through the press. 
 
 R. W. SETON- WATSON. 
 
 25th July 101 n. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Austro-Serbian Dispute .... 
 Race Problems in Austria- Hungary and Turkey 
 Austria-Hungary and the Federal Solution . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 22 
 45 
 
 PROBLEMS OF POLICY 
 
 What is at Stake in the War (1915) . 
 The Failure of Sir Edward Grey (1916) 
 Wanted — A Foreign Policy (1917) 
 The Allies' Programme (January 1917) . 
 The Passing op the Status Quo (January 1918) 
 Playing with Austria ..... 
 The End op an Illusion .... 
 
 A Contest op Ideals ..... 
 Our Peace Terms (October 1918) . 
 
 60 
 
 86 
 
 . 121 
 
 . 137 
 
 . 148 
 
 . 157 
 
 . J 65 
 
 . 174 
 
 . 181 
 
 POLITICS AND WAE 
 
 Strategy which ignores Politics 
 The Importance of Salonica . 
 
 XV 
 
 194 
 199 
 
XVI 
 
 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 KUSSIA 
 Panslavism . . . . • 
 The Musings of a Slavophil . . . 
 Have the Allies a Eussian Policy ? 
 Our Russian Policy 
 
 PAGE 
 
 207 
 225 
 235 
 
 242 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE NEW EUROPE 
 
 The Future op Bohemia .... 
 
 « . 250 
 
 Czecho-Slovak Claims . . 
 
 . 273 
 
 Italy, Jugoslavia, and the Secret Treaty 
 
 . 297 
 
 The True Lines of an Adriatic Settlement . 
 
 . 310 
 
 The Roumanians of Hungary .... 
 
 . 326 
 
 The Question of the Banat .... 
 
 . 335 
 
 The Evolution of Bulgaria .... 
 
 . 347 
 
 The Ukraine Problem ..... 
 
 .. 365 
 
 Frano Supilo . . . . 
 
 . 377 
 
 General Stefanik ...... 
 
 . 389 
 
 Index ........ 
 
 . 395 
 
 MAPS 
 
 
 Austria-Hungary : Physic at, .... 
 
 FACE PAOK 
 
 2 
 
 Hungary Old and New ..... 
 
 46 
 
 The German Federal Republic 
 
 63 
 
 The New Poland ...... 
 
 82 
 
 The New Europe ...... 
 
 . 182 
 
 The Czecho-Slovak Republic . . . . 
 
 . 274 
 
 Jugoslavia . . . . . , . 
 
 . 312 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN DISPUTE i 
 
 I. The Assassination of the Aechduke 
 
 The actual event which gave the first impetus to the 
 greatest war of history was the assassination of the Arch- 
 duke Francis Ferdinand, but it is obvious that the causes 
 lie far deeper than that mysterious crime. Before con- 
 sidering them, however, it is necessary to inquire what the 
 murder meant for Austria -Hungary. Quite apart from 
 its effects upon foreign policy, his death exercised an in- 
 finitely greater influence upon the internal development 
 of the Habsburg Monarchy than the tragic fate of Crown 
 Prince Rudolf twenty - five years earlier. For Francis 
 Ferdinand was one of the outstanding personalities in 
 Europe — with the possible exception of William II., the 
 most masterful member of any reigning house. As his 
 uncle grew older, Francis Ferdinand had come more and 
 more to represent in his own person a great political pro- 
 gramme — ^the overthrow of the effete Dual System, which 
 originally rested on the dominance of two races, the German 
 and the Magyar, over the remaining eight, but which had 
 ceased to ^' work " since the virtual collapse of the former 
 in all save foreign policy ; the regeneration of the Monarchy 
 as a centraUst state, on a wide if modified federalist basis ; 
 
 • 
 
 1 From The Round Table. No. 16, September 1914. 
 
 1 B 
 
2 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the vindication of the rights of the subject races of Hungary ; 
 a policy of internal administrative and linguistic reform ; 
 the solution of the Southern Slav question by unifying the 
 Serbo-Croat race under Habsburg rule ; and the conse- 
 quent extension of Austrian influence and prestige in the 
 Balkans. He thus incorporated the " Great Austrian " 
 idea in its most ambitious form. Neither German nor 
 Slav nor Latin, but merely " Habsburg " in feeling, he was, 
 both by descent and by temperament, a typical blend of 
 Habsburg and Bourbon. Though not in any sense a 
 pacifist, he was also not an irresponsible militarist. We have 
 the authority of Dr. Danev, the Bulgarian ex-Premier, for 
 the assertion that Francis Ferdinand used his influence 
 during the first Balkan War strongly in favour of peace 
 with Serbia ; and from another highly reliable source the 
 present writer learnt the remark of the Archduke, dating 
 from the same period: "An Emperor can risk an unsuccess- 
 ful war, but a Crown Prince cannot." In short, Francis 
 ^ Ferdinand's poUcy was dynastic and imperialist, and yet 
 in many respects democratic ; at the least its fulfilment 
 would have involved a vast step towards democratic ideals. 
 It must be borne in mind that, despite many shortcomings 
 Austria has made great progress politically in recent years. 
 The real obstacle has always lain in Hungary, where the 
 Magyar oligarchy, aided by its Jewish parasites in the 
 commercial and journahstic world, has monopolised all 
 political power and exploited it in favour of a narrow 
 racial hegemony. 
 
 The Sarajevo murder is, and may remain, a hideous 
 mystery. In a country so infested by secret police as 
 Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Croatia — where for years past 
 treason-hunts have been the order of the day^ and indeed 
 treasonable propaganda has often been artificially created 
 
o 
 
 I— I 
 
 w 
 
 
 
4 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 to order — it is difficult to understand how so elaborate a 
 plot could have eluded the vigilance of the authorities. 
 It is an open secret that no precautions were taken for the 
 protection of the Archduke and his wife, and without en- 
 dorsing the widespread assertion that the two murderers, 
 Cabrinovic and Princip, were Austrian agents provocateurs, 
 we are at least entitled to suspect that they were left free 
 to ply the trade of assassin. This is borne out by the 
 well-authenticated remark made by the Archduke to his 
 suite after the explosion of the bomb — " The fellow will 
 get the Golden Cross of Merit for this "- — a phrase which 
 merely confirms equally authentic and significant remarks 
 made by him on other occasions. Not less suspicious are 
 the shameful anti-Serb excesses which followed the murder. 
 No one who knows anything of Bosnia will pretend that the 
 police and the mihtary were alike powerless to prevent the 
 wholesale sacking of houses and hotels on two successive 
 days by the scum of the bazaar population. Cui jprodest ? 
 Until the great war is over further investigation will be 
 impossible, and it may be that meanwhile all traces of 
 the real truth will be effaced. For the moment it is 
 enough to point out that despite the widespread horror 
 excited by the outrage, the removal of Francis Ferdinand 
 evoked in many influential circles in Vienna and Budapest 
 feelings of thinly veiled relief. It is only fair to add that 
 while some were influenced by fears for their political 
 monopoly, others were persuaded that his accession to 
 the throne might prove a grave embarrassment to the 
 dynasty, owing to the serious and incurable disease with 
 which he was threatened and which filled both himself and 
 his wife with gloomy forebodings. 
 
 The immediate effect of the crime was to remove the one 
 man capable of controlling a difficult situation and to bring 
 
THE AUSTKO-SEKBlAN DISPUTE 5 
 
 the irresponsible elements to the front. The grief of the 
 Army, the Clericals, and even of certain sections of the Slav 
 population, who each in their own way had looked to 
 Francis Ferdinand as their leader and saviour in the near 
 future, was now skilfully exploited by the very people who 
 secretly rejoiced at his disappearance from the scene. The 
 Magyar ohgarchy, which already had its back against the 
 wall, realised that the moment for action had come. Its 
 reactionary ideas of racial dominance found a leader — 
 fanatical, iron-handed, personally equally brave and honest, 
 but politically quite immune from all scruples--— in Count 
 Stephen Tisza, the Hungarian Premier. 
 
 The murder provided a splendid pretext for aggression. 
 The psychological effect of so dastardly a deed was to unite 
 many discordant elements in anger and revenge, and was 
 well calculated to destroy Serbia's reviving reputation in 
 Europe. Nor must one personal factor of the highest 
 importance be overlooked — the effect of such a crime upon 
 the German Emperor. The loss of an intimate and valued 
 friend, the deadly blow struck at a closely allied Power, the 
 peculiar infamy of an outrage upon one of the sacred royal 
 caste, all contributed to make him impervious to argument 
 on the subject, and it is probable that the friction which 
 arose between the Courts of Berlin and Vienna in connection 
 with the Archduke's funeral made WiUiam 11. all the more 
 anxious to show what he regarded as unquestioning loyalty 
 to his ally's cause. To this extent he may be said to have 
 become the cat's-paw of Viennese intrigue, even if there are 
 grounds for believing that other considerations had their 
 effect on his decision. 
 
 Vienna and Budapest were at one in attempting to fix 
 the whole blame upon Serbia. The methods employed to 
 convince Europe were the same as those of the Bosnian 
 
6 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and Balkan crises of 1908 and 1912, and it is essential to 
 recnr briefly to those events. 
 
 II. The Crises of 1908 and 1912 
 
 When, as a result of the Yoiing Turkish revolution, Aehren- 
 thal decided upon the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
 a case had to be made out to prove its necessity. In the 
 summer of 1908, therefore — as a result of connivance between 
 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna and the Hungarian 
 CoaUtion Cabinet and its nominee Baron Ranch, as Ban 
 of Croatia — wholesale arrests were made in Croatia, on 
 charges of treasonable Pan -Serb propaganda; and in 
 March 1909, while the international crisis was at its height, 
 the notorious High Treason Trial opened at Agram. Three 
 weeks later the Austrian historian, Dr. Fried] ung, pub- 
 lished an article in the Neue Freie Presse, in which, on the 
 basis of documents supplied to him by the Foreign Office, 
 he formally accused a number of prominent politicians of 
 the Serbo-Croat Coalition of being in the pay of Belgrade. 
 It is an open secret that if war with Serbia had resulted, 
 these leaders would have been summarily shot, and with 
 them would probably have perished all evidence of the 
 perfidious conspiracy directed against them.\ The crisis 
 passed, and in due course the libel action brought by the 
 Serbo-Croat leaders against Dr. Fried] ung came up before 
 a Viennese jury and developed into one of the most sensa- 
 tional poHtical trials of modern times. It was conclusively 
 proved that the " documents " supplied to Dr. Fried] ung 
 were impudent forgeries, deliberately concocted to ruin 
 the movement for unity and the political parties which 
 advocated it; and the methods of Count Aehrenthal and 
 the officials of the Ballplatz were gravely compromised. 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN DISPUTE 7 
 
 Further inquiries, due mainly to the energy of the Czech 
 philosopher and politician, Professor Masaryk, elicited the 
 fact that the forgeries originated in the Austro-Hungarian 
 Legation at Belgrade, which thus was exposed as the centre 
 of the plot to discredit Serbia in the interests of Vienna. 
 When Masaryk, in a scathing speech in the Austrian Dele- 
 gation, openly denounced Count Forgach, the Minister in 
 Belgrade, as " Count Azev,"^ attempts were made to save 
 the latter's reputation at the expense of subordinate 
 members of the Legation; but his moral responsibility for 
 the forgeries was finally estabUshed by the tactical errors 
 of Aehrenthal and his oflB.cial press.^ 
 
 These shameful methods, in every way worthy of the 
 worst police -state traditions of Napoleon or Metternich, 
 not only aroused the bitterest feeling throughout Southern 
 Slav lands, but rendered friendly relations between Austria- 
 Hungary and Serbia almost impossible. When Count 
 Berchtold succeeded Count Aehrenthal as Foreign Minister, 
 there seemed to be some prospect of improvement, but 
 though personally beyond reproach he was far too indolent 
 and superficial to attempt any reform of the system which 
 lay like a canker at the heart of Austrian foreign policy. 
 Not merely did the old bureaucratic gang remain, but ere 
 very long Forgach, who had in the meantime been trans- 
 ferred from Belgrade to the less electric atmosphere of 
 Dresden, was actually summoned to the Ballplatz as one 
 of the chief directors of Balkan policy. The anti-Serbian 
 campaign, hitherto in the hands of the two under-secre- 
 taries, Kania and Macchio, thus passed under the control 
 
 ^ An allusion to the notorious Russian agent provocateur, who 
 was at once a member of the secret police and of the revolutionary 
 organisation. 
 
 3 See a detailed account of this incident in my " Southern Slav 
 Question," chap. xii. 
 
8 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of a still more pronounced enemy of the Southern Slavs. 
 That there was no provocation on the part of Serbia it 
 would be idle to assert. Indeed, it may be admitted that 
 the authorities in Belgrade did little or nothing to repress 
 those anarchic and unruly elements which are so much in 
 evidence in all the Balkan capitals and which are system- 
 atically encouraged by a noisy gutter press. But such in- 
 action is partly explained by the notorious part played in 
 Belgrade by the secret agents of Vienna and Budapest. 
 Nor should it be forgotten that all overtures from Belgrade 
 were consistently and almost contemptuously rejected by 
 the Ballplatz. At the- height of the Balkan crisis three 
 prominent Austrian politicians visited Belgrade with the 
 definite object of promoting an understanding, though 
 without any formal authorisation from Vienna ; and one 
 of them, who enjoys the confidence of almost all Southern 
 Slavs,^ was empowered by the Serbian Premier, Mr. Pasic, 
 to put forward such far-reaching proposals on the part of 
 the Serbian Government as would have revolutionised the 
 whole relations of the Monarchy with its Balkan neighbours. 
 This ofier contained the promise not only of railway, road, 
 and bridge concessions throughout the new Serbian terri- 
 tories to Austrian capitalists, but even the pledge of the 
 " most favoured nation " clause in the next commercial 
 treaty. Count Berchtold's attitude towards these advances, 
 combined with the scandals of the Prochaska afiair^ at 
 
 1 This was Professor Masaryk, now President of the Czecho- 
 slovak Republic. At the time of writing it did not seem advisable 
 to mention him by name. Shortly after (in October 1914) I went to 
 Rotterdam to meet Professor Masaryk, who came from Prague by 
 secret arrangement in order to get into touch with his friends in the 
 West. 
 
 2 The occupation of Prizren by the Serbian army and the con- 
 sequent isolation of Mr. Prochaska, the Austro-Hungarian Consul in 
 that town, from his Government, provided the latter with a con- 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN DISPUTE 9 
 
 the same time, forced Pasic to the conclusion that friend- 
 ship with Austria was impossible, and greatly strengthened 
 the influence of that arch intriguer, Mr. Hartwig, the 
 Russian Minister in Belgrade. J The hostile attitude of the 
 Monarchy towards Serbia during the first war was still 
 further accentuated in the second war, when Bulgaria re- 
 ceived large material aid from Vienna and was publicly 
 encouraged in her aggressive attitude by a famous speech 
 of the Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza. The keen hos- 
 tility towards Serbia which inspired Count Forgach, Baron 
 Macchio,^ and their colleagues in the Ballplatz, must be 
 regarded as a very important factor in the situation, nor 
 should their relations with the German Ambassador in 
 Vienna — an active enemy of all Slav movements, whether 
 in Russia or in Austria — be overlooked. 
 
 It is well, then, to reahse the determining factors in 
 Austria-Hungary after the removal of the '' strong man." 
 The old Emperor, peace-loving and possessed of unrivalled 
 experience, but entirely devoid of all initiative and no 
 longer able to check or hold back the forces working around 
 him. The Court clique, consisting of his Chamberlain, 
 Prince Montenuovo, his aide-de-camp. Count Paar — both 
 open enemies of the late Duchess of Hohenberg — and 
 certain female influences, ringing him round as by a Chinese 
 
 venient pretext for inaugurating an anti-Serb campaign and infla min g 
 public opinion. For a fortnight the entire population of Vienna 
 firmly believed that Prochaska had been shamefully mutilated by 
 the Serb troops, and it was only when he arrived imhurt in Vienna 
 that the legend fell to the ground. At the same time similar Ubels 
 against Serbia were propagated in Vienna — ^notably a circumstantial 
 account of how General 5ivkovi(j had with his own hand murdered 
 the Albanian leader Isa Boljetinac ! In reaUty they never met. 
 
 ^ It is wort,h noting that after Italy's declaration of neutrality 
 Macchio was despatched as ambassador to Rome, in a last despairing 
 effort to drag Italy into active support of the Triple AlHance and 
 incidentally to poison the minds of Italian statesmen against Serbia. 
 
10 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 wall of preconceived ideas. Konrad von Hoetzendorf, an 
 able soldier, but a man without a trace of judgment, balance 
 or statesmanship, ready to stake all on a gambler's throw. 
 The Foreign Ofi&ce cHque, with its sinister record, utterly 
 shortsighted and uninspired. The German Ambassador, 
 Tschirschky, with all the supporters he could muster in 
 the financial and journalistic world. Count Stiirgkh, the 
 Austrian Premier, whose complete insignificance rendered 
 the task of the extremists easier. Count Tisza, the Hun- 
 garian Premier, a Calvinist fanatic ready to die in the last 
 ditch for an ideal as perverted and anachronous as that 
 which inspired Paul Kriiger. • 
 
 III. The Race Issue 
 
 What is it, then, that has rendered friendship between 
 Austria-Hungary and Serbia impossible ? The obstacle is 
 at once economic and national. Let us deal with the former 
 issue first. Serbia, as an inland country, found her eco- 
 nomic independence hampered and threatened at every turn 
 by her powerful neighbour, while on the other hand the 
 provinces of Dalmatia and Bosnia, which form geographic- 
 ally the seaboard of Serbia and are inhabited by men of 
 her own race, are in aUen hands. Her efforts at economic 
 emancipation under King Peter led to the so-called " Pig 
 War " against the Monarchy ; but though unexpectedly 
 successful in finding new markets, the Serb peasants felt 
 the pinch of such a struggle and repaid it in an increased 
 hatred of Austria-Hungary. At this point came the Young 
 Turkish Revolution and the consequent annexation of 
 Bosnia by Aehrenthal. Of course it had long been obvious 
 to external observers that in 1878 Austria-Hungary had 
 come to stay, and that her effective administration would 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN DISPUTE 11 
 
 never again be superseded by the phantom Turkish suzer- 
 ainty. Yet that act, though only technically a breach of 
 international law, touched the whole Serb race to the quick 
 and led to violent outbursts of impotent fury. For some 
 months it seemed as though Serbia and Montenegro were 
 bent upon staking their very existence upon war with the 
 Monarchy. Aehrenthal, of course, adhered stubbornly to 
 the policy of annexation. Russia, after encouraging the 
 sister States in their diplomatic resistance, abandoned them 
 to their fate when Germany stepped forth in " shining 
 armour " to support her ally. Nothing was left for them 
 but a humiliating submission, embodied in the document 
 which Viennese diplomacy has made a convenient point 
 of departure for the Austrian Note to Serbia.^ 
 
 This reverse had a chastening effect upon Serbia and 
 restored her to a sense of hard realities. From that day 
 dates the rapid renaissance of her national spirit, and of its 
 most practical form of expression, the Serbian Army. No 
 one who visited Belgrade in 1908-9 and returned in 1912- 
 1913 could fail to wonder at the transformation. The two 
 Balkan wars revealed Serbia to the outside world as a real 
 military power, revealed, too, the latent possibilities of the 
 Serb race. Expansion on natural lines to the west having 
 been artificially prevented, Serbia now had to look for 
 other exits, and the ""first result of her victories over the 
 Turks was her occupation of Northern Albania and of the 
 very inferior but tolerable ports of Durazzo and Medua. 
 Berchtold was too shortsighted to realise that for reasons 
 of physical geography these harbours could never become 
 naval bases, that their mountainous hinterland was likely 
 to be a source of weakness to the conquerors, and that the* 
 moment had arrived for finally tempting the Serbs into the 
 
 1 See White Paper, No. 4: 
 
12 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Austrian sphere of influence by the bait of generous com- 
 mercial concessions through Bosnia and Dalmatia. Turn- 
 ing a deaf ear to those who urged such a policy upon him, 
 he imposed an absolute veto upon Serbian expansion on 
 the Adriatic and devoted himself to causing friction among 
 the allies. Serbia thus had no alternative save to seek 
 her economic outlet down the valley of the Vardar, and in 
 so doing she came into violent conflict with Bulgarian 
 aspirations in Macedonia. To the Ballplatz a war between 
 the alhes was the first condition to that Austrian advance 
 on Salonica which still remained the ideal of an influential 
 section of Austrian and Hungarian opinion. 
 
 But the issues involved lie far deeper than the quarrel 
 between Belgrade and Vienna or Budapest. The unity of 
 a race of eleven millions is at stake — ^the future of all the 
 wide lands that lie between Villach and Monastir, between 
 Neusatz and Cattaro. The subjoined table shows existing 
 political subdivisions and gives some idea of the untenable 
 situation of the Southern Slavs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Serbo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Croat- 
 
 
 
 Croat. 
 
 Serb. 
 
 Slovene. 
 
 Moslem. 
 
 I. 1. 
 
 Under Austria — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (a) Dalmatia . 
 
 600,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 « » 
 
 ■ • 
 
 
 (6) Istria 
 
 200,000 
 
 ■ • 
 
 100,000 
 
 • • 
 
 
 (c) Cariiiola \ 
 Carinthiaj 
 
 * » 
 
 ■ ■ 
 
 1,200,000 
 
 • • 
 
 o 
 
 Under Hungary — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (a) Croatia-Slavonia 
 
 1,750,000 
 
 650,000 
 
 • • 
 
 • • 
 
 
 (6) Banat, and W. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Counties . 
 
 200,000 
 
 450,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 , ^ 
 
 3. 
 
 Under Austria-Hun- 
 gary jomtly 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bosnia-Herzegovina 
 
 450,000 
 
 850,000 
 
 • • 
 
 600,000 
 
 II. 4. 
 
 Independent Serbia 
 
 • • 
 
 3,250,000 
 
 • • 
 
 • « 
 
 5. 
 
 Independent Monte- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 negro . 
 
 • • 
 
 350,000 
 
 • « 
 
 « • 
 
 3,200,000 5,650,000 1,400,000 600,000 
 United total . 10,850,000 
 
THE AUSTRO-SEKBIAN DISPUTE 13 
 
 While Serbia, released by the hideous tragedy of 1903 
 from the corrupt and irresponsible yoke of the Obrenovitch, 
 entered upon a new era under a rival dynasty, a movement 
 of almost equal importance was taking place among her 
 kinsmen across the Save and Drina. In 1905 the scattered 
 opposition parties of Croatia combined into the so-called 
 Croato-Serb Coalition, and at the conferences of Fiume 
 and Zara adopted a programme of constructive reform as 
 the basis of joint political action on the part of both races. 
 The immediate result was that the party which for the 
 previous twenty years had ruled Croatia in the interests of 
 Budapest by the aid of every imaginable corruption and 
 violence, at once lost its majority and collapsed. After a 
 brief reconciliation with the Magyars, the Croato-Serb 
 Coalition was driven once more into opposition : but 
 nothing could now check the growing perception that Croat 
 and Serb are one race, divided only by differences which 
 the modern world no longer regards as the excuse for a 
 family feud. To check this movement for unity, Vienna 
 and Budapest resorted to the systematic persecution of the 
 Serbs of Croatia. Wholesale arrests and charges of treason 
 led up to the monster trial at Agram, which dragged on 
 for seven months amid scandals worthy of the days of 
 Judge Jeffreys. The Diet ceased to meet, the constitu- 
 tion of Croatia was in abeyance, the elections were char- 
 acterised by corruption and violence such as ecHpsed even 
 the infamous Hungarian elections of 1910 ; the press and 
 the political leaders were singled out for special acts of 
 persecution and intimidation. These tactics seemed to 
 have reached their height in the Fried jung trial (December 
 1909), to which reference has been made above, and its 
 scandals led to the fall of Baron Ranch, who, as Ban of 
 Croatia, had been responsible for many of the worst abuses. 
 
14 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 But there was merely a change of person, not a change 
 of system, and ere long the friction between Magyar and 
 Southern Slav was as acute as ever. Serbo-Croat unity 
 was only cemented by persecution, and the movement soon 
 extended to the kindred Slovenes and struck root even 
 among the most confirmed Clericals. In the spring of 
 1912 the conflict between Agram and Budapest culminated 
 in the abolition of the Croatian constitution, in the appoint- 
 ment of an unscrupulous official as dictator, and a few 
 months later in the suspension of the charter of the 
 Serb Orthodox Church. From an Austrian point of view 
 nothing could have been more unfortunate. For close on the 
 heels of these crying illegalities and the Hvely demonstra- 
 tions and unrest which they evoked, came the Balkan war, 
 the crushing victories of the allies over Turkey, the resurrec- 
 tion of the lost Serbian empire, the long-deferred revenge 
 for the defeat of Kosovo. The Southern Slav provinces 
 of the Monarchy were carried off their feet by a wave of 
 almost ecstatic enthusiasm for the Balkan League, and an 
 almost impossible situation was reached when the Austro- 
 Hungarian Government placed itself in violent conflict with 
 Serbia, vetoed her expansion to the Adriatic, insisted upon 
 the creation of an independent Albania and mobilised to 
 enforce her openly Serbophobe policy. Even during 
 Cuvaj's regime in Croatia, in other words in the spring pre- 
 ceding the war, the movement of national protest had- 
 spread far beyond the classes which usually control such 
 movements. Its infection had spread to the schools, and 
 on one occasion practically every boy and girl above the 
 age of fourteen in the schools of Croatia, Bosnia, and Dal- 
 matia had indulged in a spontaneous and well-organised 
 poHtical strike ! On such soil the Balkan war struck deep 
 root, and in one short year the Southern Slav youth was 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN DISPUTE 15 
 
 irretrievably lost for Austria. The moderate politicians 
 lost all hold upon the younger generation : the students 
 simply ignored them and went their own way. Many 
 dreamt of revolution, all alike looked to Serbia as the day- 
 star of national hberty. Such was the milieu out of which 
 came the group of youthful fanatics whose act of terrorism 
 has set Europe in a blaze. Those whose sympathy for the 
 ItaUan Risorgimento is not damped by the methods of the 
 Carbonari or of Mazzini's disciples, who do not despair of 
 Russian freedom because its cause has been stained by acts 
 of terrorism, will not condemn a whole nation for the crimes 
 of a few raw and unbalanced striphngs. The hideous 
 irony of it all is that Francis Ferdinand was the one man 
 capable of righting the desperate internal situation ; the 
 one man in high quarters who was resolutely opposed to 
 Magyar poHcy towards the Hungarian nationalities and 
 toward Croatia and resolved to attempt some drastic solu- 
 tion of the Southern Slav problem, as soon as fate should 
 grant him the opportunity. 
 
 To sum up, it cannot be too strongly affirmed that the 
 incentive to the crime came from within the Monarchy, 
 from the intolerable misrule of the Magyars, aggravated by 
 Viennese connivance. While it is true to say that the 
 existence of an independent Serbia kindled the imagination 
 of the Serbs and Croats within the Monarchy and rendered 
 them restless under galling political conditions, and that 
 Belgrade, Uke all other Balkan capitals, contains anarchical 
 and revolutionary elements eager to make mischief across 
 the frontiers, there are, on the other hand, no grounds 
 whatever for supposing that official Serbia had any connec- 
 tion with the crime. Everything points to the opposite 
 conclusion, for the murder occurred at a moment when 
 Serbia was specially in need of peace. The Concordat with 
 
16 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the Vatican had only been signed a week before ; the 
 negotiations regarding the Orient railway had reached a 
 critical stage ; above all, the customs and military union 
 between Serbia and Montenegro was on the point of being 
 proclaimed and there was even a prospect of a final arrange- 
 ment regarding the mutual relations of the Karageorge- 
 vitch and Petrovitch dynasties. In other words, in the 
 absence of proof the presumption would be in favour of 
 aggression from Vienna to prevent Serbian consolidation, 
 rather than from Belgrade in favour of a criminal provoca- 
 tion of the Habsburg Monarchy. 
 
 The one mistake made by Serbia was her omission to offer 
 a thorough inquiry, without waiting for any such sugges- 
 tion from Vienna ; and there is reason to believe that this 
 step was prevented by Mr. Hartwig, whose whole policy 
 had been devoted to embittering still further the relations 
 of Serbia and the Monarchy. His sudden death within a 
 fortnight of the murder, during an official call upon his 
 Austro - Hungarian colleague, seemed to many observers 
 a signal example of retributory justice. In this connection, 
 however, it is right to point out that as in Teheran so in 
 Belgrade Mr. Hartwig often far outran the instructions 
 or intentions of his Government, and that the appointment 
 of Prince Gregory Trubetzkoi, the gifted exponent of 
 Russian foreign policy, ^ as his successor at the Russian 
 Legation in Belgrade, was a markedly concihatory act on 
 the part of St. Petersburg. 
 
 IV. The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum 
 
 The Austro-Hungarian Note to Serbia is susceptible of 
 only one interpretation ; it was deliberately couched in 
 
 , 1 See his " Russland als Grossmacht," trans, by Josef Mehiik, 
 Stuttgart, 1913. 
 
THE AUSTRO-SEEBIAN DISPUTE 17 
 
 sucli terms as to be unacceptable. No possible loophole 
 was left by which Serbia could save her self-respect or pres- 
 tige. And yet the impossible happened, and Serbia 
 accepted the most galling of the demands made upon her, 
 merely making certain reservations upon two out of the 
 ten chief points, without expressly rejecting even them. 
 Not content with this humiliating submission, the Serbian 
 Government three days later, through the medium of its 
 representative in Rome, informed the ItaUan Foreign 
 Minister that it was actually prepared to accept the whole 
 Note, if only " some explanation were given regarding the 
 mode in which Austrian agents would require to intervene," 
 and even went so far as to offer to accept these explanations 
 from a third party, if Austria-Himgary was not disposed to 
 give them to Serbia direct.^ The best proof, however, of 
 Serbia's conciliatory attitude lies in her offer to submit any 
 points not fully met by her reply to the decision of the 
 Hague Tribunal, where there would obviously have been 
 little sympathy for terrorist conspiracies, or to that of the 
 Powers who had dictated the terms of her surrender to 
 Austria-Hungary in March 1909.^ 
 
 That Austria-Htmgary was not satisfied with so abject a 
 surrender, shows that war had been resolved upon from the 
 first. The best proof of this is the inclusion of a time limit 
 of forty -eight hours, a step which paralysed all efforts 
 towards peace and was directly responsible for the cata- 
 strophe which has overtaken Europe. It is almost impos- 
 sible to resist the conclusion that BerUn shares with Vienna 
 the responsibility for this time limit ; and this is further 
 strengthened by the frank admission of the German White 
 Paper, that Germany " gave Austria an entirely free hand 
 
 1 White Paper, No. G4. 
 
 2 White Paper, No. 39. 
 
18 EUROPE m THE MELTING-POT 
 
 against Serbia." ^ The German contention that Austria- 
 Hungary could not be summoned before a European tri- 
 bunal was probably put forward in perfect good faith by 
 Berlin : but it shows a failure to reckon with the facts of 
 the situation, since on the one hand it ignored the all- 
 important precedent of the Dogger Bank,^ and on the other 
 gave in effect a free hand to Count Forgach and his 
 methods. The Agram and Fried] ung trials^ and the 
 scandals connected with the names of Nastic, Vasic, and 
 Forgach provide the real explanation why Austria-Hun- 
 gary was disincHned to go to the Hague, and when the war 
 is over, other still weightier reasons will probably transpire. 
 The dossier appended to the Note and submitted as its 
 justification to the representatives of the Great Powers, 
 was, to say the least, suspect, since it rested upon a one- 
 sided and secret investigation conducted in the prison of 
 Sarajevo. The attitude of the outside world could not 
 have been better summed up than by Sir Edward Grey in 
 the opening document of his memorable White Paper, in 
 which he assumed that the Austrian Government " would 
 not do anything until they had first disclosed to the public 
 
 1 The German White Paper was not, like the English one, a 
 complete collection of the dispatches which passed during the 
 negotiations, but a statement of German poUcy with a few support- 
 ing documents. It was laid before the Reichstag on August 4. 
 
 2 It will be remembered that the Russian Baltic Meet fired on 
 some British trawlers in the North Sea at the outset of its voyage to 
 the Far East during the Russo-Japanese war. The incident brought 
 the two countries to the verge of war, but was satisfactorily disposed 
 by the agreement of the two Powers to submit their differences to 
 the Hague Tribunal. 
 
 3 At the Friedjung trial Dr. Spalajkovic, in the name of the 
 Serbian Government, formally offered to submit the whole case to 
 the Hague Tribunal. The anxiety and disfavour with which this 
 proposal was greeted in Vienna was very marked, and betrayed 
 itself especially in the attitude of the presiding judge and of the semi- 
 official inspired press. 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERBIAN DISPUTE 19 
 
 their case against Serbia, founded presumably upon what 
 they had discovered at the trial'' There has been no trial, 
 and there probably never will be. In other words, the 
 dossier, even if it had not passed through the office of Count 
 Forgach, was not evidence in any Western sense of the word. 
 
 The ostensible aim of Austria-Hungary is a " punitive 
 expedition " against a turbulent and unprincipled little 
 neighbour, and to those ignorant of her internal racial con- 
 ditions this explanation may seem plausible enough. But 
 the real issues at stake are the continuance of the efiete 
 Dual System, which has so long blocked the path of every 
 real reform in the Monarchy ; the maintenance of the 
 Magyar racial hegemony over the non- Magyar races of 
 Hungary, the perpetuation of the political and economic 
 bondage of the Southern Slavs. This attempt on the part 
 of a narrow and reactionary clique to bolster up an impos- 
 sible status quo and hold back the clock of history, can only 
 end in moral and poHtical bankruptcy, but its authors seem 
 determined to drag down Europe in their fall. More than 
 any one in Europe — more even than the rival war parties 
 in Berlin, Petersburg, and Vienna — the Magyar oligarchy 
 is directly responsible for this war ; for it is their oppress- 
 ive treatment of the nationalities and above all their 
 misgovernment of Croatia, reacting upon Bosnia and 
 Dalmatia, which has kept the Southern Slav question as an 
 open sore on the face of Europe and permanently embroiled 
 the Monarchy with the independent Serb states. Just as 
 the German people's perfectly comprehensible dread of 
 Russia is being exploited by the Prussian military chiefs, 
 so the unhappy peoples of Austria-Hungary are being ex- 
 ploited in favour of a system which runs directly counter 
 to the interests and aspirations of the majority among them. 
 
 For a moment it seemed as though Austro-Russian 
 
20 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 complications might be averted by the assurances given 
 by Austria-Hungary in Paris, that the integrity of Serbia 
 would be respected.! But to those who knew enough to 
 look below the surface it was obvious that such a pledge, 
 even if given in all honesty, was almost worthless. The 
 Serbians were prepared to fight to the last man in defence 
 of their independence, and Austrian success would have 
 found the sister kingdoms in a condition in which the 
 victors would have had no choice but annexation. Count 
 Mensdorfi's eager assurance (No. 137) that Austria-Hungary 
 had no idea of re-occupying the Sandjak was either naive 
 or perfidious ; for our Foreign Office can hardly have been 
 ignorant of the notorious facts that the Austrian General 
 Staff had long ago decided that the Sandjak, as a line of 
 strategic advance, was worthless by comparison with the 
 Morava valley, and that any fresh advance into the Sand- 
 jak would infringe the Balkan understanding between 
 Austria-Hungary and Italy. There are many indications 
 that the real Austrian objective was Salonica.^ 
 
 In time of peace there was always some hope, despite the 
 ever-recurring errors of Viennese and Magyar diplomacy, 
 that the Southern Slav question might be solved peacefully 
 within the Habsburg Monarchy. But with the death of 
 the Archduke that hope also died. The question immedi- 
 ately assumed European importance, just as it had already 
 
 ^ A prime reason of the evacuation of the Sandjak in 1908 was 
 Italy's contention that the annexation of Bosnia altered the Balkan 
 status quo to her disadvantage. When during the first Balkan war 
 Italy's attitude in the Albanian question was regarded by Serbia as 
 unfriendly, the ItaUan Minister in Belgrade made repeated efforts to 
 convince the Serbian Government that Italy's action with regard to 
 the Sandjak had been inspired by friendly consideration for Serbia 
 and Montenegro. 
 
 2 See White Paper, No. 19 (Sir R. Rodd's dispatch of July 25) and 
 No, 82 (Mr. Beaumont's of July 29). 
 
THE AUSTRO-SEKBIAN DISPUTE 21 
 
 done in 1908 and in 1912. Unfortunately the statesmen 
 of Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin, while basing their case 
 upon the Serbian Note of March 1909 (acknowledging the 
 situation of Bosnia to be no concern of hers), ignored the 
 fact that this note was extracted from Serbia, and its phrase- 
 ology determined by joint action on thc'part of the Powers, 
 and persistently argued that the same question in its new 
 form was a matter which concerned no one in Europe save 
 Serbia and Austria-Hungary. This fatal attitude, based 
 on a complete misreading of past history and on a failure 
 to comprehend the point of view of ally and opponent alike, 
 was adhered to despite repeated warnings from St. Peters- 
 burg, London, and other capitals. ^ The result is universal 
 war. 
 
 On July 16 Count Tisza affirmed in, the Hungarian Parlia- 
 ment that the relations of the Monarchy with Serbia must 
 be " cleared up," and subsequent events have revealed the 
 drift of his ideas. To-day Britain may well adopt his 
 phrase and insist that among many other results of this 
 horrible war, the Southern Slav question shall be definitely 
 cleared up, but in accordance with the wishes, not of the 
 Magyar oligarchy, but of the Serbo-Croat race.^ 
 
 1 Cf. White Paper, Nos. 3, 10, 17, 48, 101, etc. 
 
 2 In its original form this article ended with the following 
 sentence : *' The action of the aUied French and British fleets upon 
 the Adriatic, and their co-operation with the Montenegrin and Serbian 
 armies, should ere long place us in a position to assure such a solu- 
 tion." Unhappily this ended in a complete fiasco. The French 
 occupied lissa, but very soon withdrew. Some of the outer forts 
 of Cattaro were silenced, and big guns were mounted on Mount 
 Lovcen, from whence they dominated the Bocche and might have 
 rendered the Austrian position untenable. Incredible as it may seem, 
 however, they were served with black powder, and the Austrians 
 were able to locate and silence them. Had the expedition against 
 Cattaro been pushed home, the Austro-German conquest of Serbia 
 might never have taken place, and the whole Balkan and Austrian 
 situation might have developed much more rapidly. 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA- 
 HUNGARY AND TURKEY! 
 
 In the Habsburg dominions, officially known to-day as 
 Austria-Hungary, the problem of nationality has always 
 presented a peculiar aspect of its own. Germany, despite 
 its political dismemberment, has been for centuries a racial 
 unit, in the sense that its members have rarely lived under 
 foreign rule, and the crowd of petty States, of which the 
 empire consisted a hundred years ago, were at least German 
 in character, language, and traditions. Some of its outlying 
 provinces, it is true, have gradually been lost to it and have 
 developed a separate national identity and culture of their 
 own, until to-day even the Pangerman extremists find it 
 difficult to enforce the argument that Holland, Belgium, 
 and Switzerland are really sections of the German race. 
 But till late in the eighteenth century it is true to say that 
 Germany was a racial unit ; it is only since then that the 
 mistaken policy of Prussia has introduced foreign elements, 
 by the Polish Partition and the wars of 1864 and 1870. 
 Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, has always been a 
 polyglot State, built up by the persistent dynastic poHcy 
 of a single family, on a basis of geography, round the great 
 river system of the Danube, but with an almost complete 
 disregard of ethnographic considerations. The result is a 
 
 1 From The Round Table, No. 17, December 1914. 
 
 22 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 23 
 
 vast mosaic of races, whose future development presents 
 an equally difficult and complicated problem, whether we 
 regard it from a political, a social, an economic, or a purely 
 ethnic point.of view. These races fall into five main groups 
 — Teutonic (Germans), Slavonic (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, 
 Ruthenes, Croats, Serbs, Slovenes), Latin (Itahans and 
 Roumanians), Ural-Altaic (Magyars), and Semitic (Jews). 
 Thus, leaving aside altogether certain minor groups, there 
 are twelve principal nationaUties and ten principal 
 languages, exclusive of dialects,^ in Austria-Hungary ; and 
 the problem of government, in addition to the Hnguistic 
 difficulty, is compUcated still further by the fact that these 
 races are still in very varying stages of civihsation, some of 
 them being as highly developed and as well organised in 
 matters of education or industry as many Western nations, 
 while among others illiteracy and superstition are rampant. 
 The House of Habsburg, despite many shortcomings, has 
 never altogether lost sight of one definite historic aim — the 
 attempt to create a political nationality which would tran- 
 scend the national f eehng of individual races and unite them 
 in a common patriotism to the State. This ideal, described 
 sometimes as ImperiaHst, sometimes as Centrahst, and in 
 late years as " Great Austrian," rested on a thoroughly 
 sound instinct and deserved to succeed. Unhappily, the 
 methods employed were often calculated to defeat its object. 
 The history of Austrian policy, both internal and external, 
 for the last two centuries, has been a long series of wasted 
 opportunities, of hesitation between alternatives. The 
 double-headed eagle in the Austrian arms has been typical 
 of this attitude. Just as in foreign pohcy it stands for the 
 
 ^ The difference in number is accounted for by the fact that Croat 
 and Serb is one and the same language, and that the language of the 
 Jews is German or a debased Yiddish dialect of German, Hebrew 
 being only the language of the Synagogue. 
 
24 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 rival tendencies to gravitate westwards into Germany and 
 eastwards into the Balkans, so in home policy it represents 
 the fatal indecision which has led Austrian statesmen to 
 dabble alternately in centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, 
 to foster or to repress individual national movements 
 according to the political constellation of the moment, to 
 play fast and loose with the two conflicting Habsburg 
 mottoes " Viribus Unitis " and " Divide et Impera." Never 
 has the tendency to rest content with half measures been so 
 marked as during the long reign of Francis Joseph ; and at 
 last, by a hideous chain of circumstances, Austria has got 
 into the position of the famous ass of the mediaeval School- 
 men — ^the ass which could not make up its mind as to the 
 respective merits of two tempting bundles of hay. The 
 original ass of the parable died of starvation, and Austria is 
 already exposed to the serious danger that her rival poHcies 
 may both pass into other hands. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the international character 
 of the mediaeval Church, the conception of Christendom as 
 a commonwealth, the world outside which was scarcely 
 known to exist, and the use of Latin as the common language 
 of culture, all told against the growth of nationality in the 
 modern sense of the word ; and as all three influences 
 lingered in Austria later than elsewhere, the rise of the new 
 force was still scarcely reahsed by the ruling classes of 
 Austria even as late as the second half of the eighteenth 
 century. The ideal of a strong centrahst State, in which 
 the monarch held the position of a benevolent parent 
 towards his people, underlay the whole pohcy of Maria 
 Theresa. 
 
 Her son, Joseph 11. , tried to adapt this idea to the 
 doctrines of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists. Inspired 
 by eighteenth-century theories of " enlightenment " and 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 25 
 
 absolutism, he virtually ignored national feeling altogether. 
 " All provinces of the Monarchy must form a single whole, 
 and in all, the forces of the people must be directed towards 
 a common aim-^the power of Austria " — in these words, 
 Joseph summarised his programme of reforms, on his 
 accession ; and the foremost instrument towards their 
 achievement was the introduction of German as the univers al 
 language of State throughout his dominions. 
 
 His clumsy and rigid methods jeopardised all that had 
 been won by the tact of his mother, and roused from their 
 slumbers all the latent forces of nationalism. The chief 
 opposition came from the Magyars, whose nobihty was 
 driven into the national movement by Joseph's rash on- 
 slaughts upon two of their strictest preserves, Hungarian 
 local government and serfdom. The first signs of a national 
 revival, both in Hungary and in Bohemia, were academic, 
 almost pedantic. Strange as it may seem to Western 
 students, the archaeologist played a very vital part in these 
 movements, the poet built upon the foundations which he 
 had laid, and finally the politician took up the work of both 
 and popularised the ideas for which they had hved. The 
 linguistic and literary revival among the Magyars rapidly 
 imdid the work of Joseph, and prepared the way for a long 
 series of constitutional and linguistic reforms, culminating 
 in the Hungarian upheaval of 1848. The Magyars owed 
 the rapid lead which they estabhshed over their neighbours 
 to a more favourable geographical situation and to the 
 poHtical %nd economic strength of their nobihty. The 
 Czechs were delayed by the fact that their national nobility 
 had been almost exterminated during the Thirty Years' 
 War, and that its successors were altogether German in 
 
 feehng. 
 
 But it would be a mistake to suppose that the other races 
 
26 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 were slower than the Magyars to feel the promptings of 
 nationality. The famous Supplex Libellus Valachormn pre- 
 sented by the Roumanians of Transylvania to Joseph 11. , 
 the publication of a Slovak newspaper as early as 1783, the 
 lively opposition of the Croats in 1790 to schemes for intro- 
 ducing the Magyar language, the Serb demand in the same 
 year for the autonomy of the Banat — these instances could 
 be multiplied to show that nationality was stirring every- 
 where in Hungary. Unhappily, the Magyars, having out- 
 distanced the others, set themselves dehberately to retard 
 their progress and to estabhsh a monopoly. 
 
 The Napoleonic wars sowed the seeds of nationalism 
 broadcast over Europe, and left them to germinate slowly 
 in the exhausted soil. At the Congress of Vienna, con- 
 servative and reactionary ideas again triumphed. The 
 diplomats did lip-service to the idea of nationahty, and made 
 the paper concession of *' national institutions " for the 
 Poles. But otherwise the whole settlement was flagrantly 
 anti-national ; Europe was cut up according to dynastic 
 and personal inclinations, and the history of the hundred 
 years which followed is a succession of violent attempts to 
 upset its unnatural decisions. 
 
 In Bohemia, the national movement was at first confined 
 to a tiny group of patriots, of whom one of their number 
 remarked during an informal supper party, that, if the ceil- 
 ing of the room where they were sitting were to fall in upon 
 them, there would be an end of Czech nationalism ! At 
 first the movement was " Bohemian " in the true historical 
 sense, German - Bohemians like Meissner showing equal 
 enthusiasm. The cleavage came in 1848, when Prague 
 became the centre of a Slav Congress, and thus the rival 
 of Frankfurt. Henceforth; the two races in Bohemia fell 
 more and more apart, and their quarrel has done more than 
 
EACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 27 
 
 anything else to paralyse the political development of 
 Austria in recent years. 
 
 Meanwhile in Hungary Magyar nationalism steadily 
 gathered force, under the inspiration of brilKant political 
 leaders and of a remarkable literary revival. Unhappily 
 it was soon captured by a peculiarly violent form of jingoism 
 which bitterly resented the national claims of almost all 
 the neighbouring races, and began to propagate the idea 
 of an exclusively Magyar national State. 
 
 The Magyarisation of Hungary was openly proclaimed 
 as equivalent to " the victory of reason, liberty, and intelh- 
 gence," and the bare idea that Slovak, German, or Roumanian 
 culture could coexist with that of the " ruling nation " 
 (az uralhodo nemzet, as it is often called), was scouted as 
 treason to the State. ^ The violent passions aroused on all 
 sides by this frenzied propaganda were directly responsible 
 for the way in which the revolution of 1848 developed in 
 Hungary into a fierce racial war, ringing the Magyars round 
 by hostile nationahties in arms. Count Szechenyi, known 
 to his own countrymen as " the greatest of the Magyars," 
 roundly accused Louis Kossuth of " goading " the non- 
 Magyars " into madness against the Magyar nation " by 
 his intolerant policy. 
 
 In 1848 the Magyars represented the cause of constitu- 
 tional liberty and progress, but their folly in seeking to 
 restrict its privileges to their own race ralhed all their 
 neighbours, the other nationahties of Hungary — Slovaks, 
 Roumanians, Saxons, Croats, Serbs, and Ruthenes ahke — 
 on the side of the dynasty, and so, as the issue proved, of 
 political reaction. Strange as it may seem, it is no exaggera- 
 tion to assert that " the defeat of Kossuth's Magyars, 
 
 1 See Count Zay's address to tee Lutheran General Assembly 
 (1840), cit. "Racial Problems in Hungary," p. 66. 
 
28 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 in the eyes of Europe martyrs of liberty, was greeted by 
 their subject races as the end of a detested tyranny." ^ 
 But, as a witty Magyar remarked, " the other races received 
 as reward what the Magyars received as punishment." 
 Indeed, the system of blended centralism and Germanisa- 
 tion applied to the whole Habsburg Monarchy during the 
 period of Bach and Schmerling, was not unfairly summed 
 up by another Magyar poHtician as " the equal right of all 
 races — to become Germans ! " The experiment failed no 
 less decisively than preceding efforts, but on this occasion 
 its failure was very largely due to the interaction of nation- 
 ahty and economics, as accentuated by the emancipation 
 of the peasantry, which from a national point of view 
 entirely changed the face both of Austria and Hungary. 
 " It is through it that the struggle of nationalities has become 
 a war of masses, instead of a duel of privileged persons. 
 The peasants enslaved, oppressed, miserable, did not count 
 as factors in this struggle ; but the peasants, liberated, 
 raised in their personal dignity and in their material condi- 
 tion, have been able henceforth to render effective aid to 
 the cause of their nationahty. Delivered from the yoke 
 which weighed heavily upon them, they have become 
 capable of enthusiasm for an ideal and of sacrifices in aid 
 of its attainment." ^ 
 
 The failure of the revolution was followed by ten years 
 of black reaction (1849—1859) and seven years more of 
 continual constitutional experiments. It was the two wars 
 of 1859 and 1866 — which by finally expelling Austria both 
 from Italy and from Germany led to the achievement of 
 ItaHan and German unity — ^that rendered internal pohtical 
 reform in the Monarchy inevitable, and the Magyars were 
 
 1 Auerbach, "Les Nationalites en Autriche-Hongrie," p. 239. 
 
 2 Louis Eisenraann, " Le Compromis Austro-Hongrois," p. 146. 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 29 
 
 fortunate in possessing a small group of able statesmen — ■ 
 Deak, Andrassy, and Eotvos — who utterly outclassed the 
 third-rate politicians of Vienna, Prague, or Agram, and who 
 enjoyed the favour and confidence of the Court. The 
 Compromise or Ausgleich of 1867 marks a new point of 
 departure in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy — Austria- 
 Hungary as it is henceforth officially styled. " The real 
 motive force which underlies the Dual System is a league 
 between the two strongest races, the Germans and the 
 Magyars, who divided the Monarchy between them, and by 
 the grant of autonomy to the two next strongest races, the 
 Poles and the Croats, made them their accomplices in hold- 
 ing down the remaining eight." ^ 
 
 In effect, Dualism enlisted the support of Austria, and 
 all its resources as a Great Power, in favour of " the idea 
 of the Magyar State " (a magyar dllam eszme), that " unitary 
 national State " by which every Hungarian statesman for 
 three generations past has aspired to replace the old polyglot 
 State of history. 
 
 During the forty-seven years which have elapsed since the 
 Ausgleich, there has been a marked difference in the develop- 
 ment of Austria and of Hungary, which has been still 
 further accentuated in the new century. In Austria, the 
 German hegemony only lasted for a decade ; the German 
 parties, relying partly on the bureaucratic and military 
 traditions, sought to identify that hegemony with the 
 Austrian State itself, but the attempt became hopeless from 
 the moment when the Czechs abandoned their fooUsh pohcy 
 of abstention from parliamentary Hfe. The constitution 
 was made, and its functions were distributed between the 
 Central Parliament or Reichsrat and the seventeen pro- 
 vincial Diets, which enjoy very varied powers. There was 
 ^ Racial Problems in Hungary, p. 157. 
 
30 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 no official language of State, and the very equality which 
 the law secured in theory to every one of the recognised 
 races and languages ^ served to increase the confusion. 
 The violent racial brawls of which Parliament was the scene 
 undermined its prestige, increased the indifference of the 
 masses to its proceedings, and rendered reform and even 
 ordinary legislation increasingly difficult. Hence a situa- 
 tion of recurring crises, in which bouts of parliamentary 
 obstruction correspond to the rise in temperature of a fever 
 patient. Till the close of the century, racial and linguistic 
 disputes — above all, the perennial struggle of German and 
 Czech for the mastery in Bohemia — paralysed the whole 
 internal poHcy of the State, which virtually owed its con- 
 tinued existence to the joint efforts of the dynasty and the 
 bureaucracy. " It is because it is only sustained by these 
 two forces that the Cis-leithan State (i.e. Austria) has been 
 reduced in the Dual System to the role of a simple appendix 
 of Hungary," wrote M. Eisenmann in 1904 with perfect 
 justice. The system was contrived as a just balance 
 between two equals, but this was completely deranged by 
 the breaches made in the German hegemony in Austria, and 
 with every decade it became more and more clear that the 
 machine would only work when one scale was high in the 
 air. For a whole generation Hungary not merely controlled 
 the whole foreign poHcy of the Monarchy — notably under the 
 great Andrassy and under Kalnoky and even the indolent 
 Goluchowsld— but also directly interfered from time to time 
 with the internal constitutional arrangements of her partner. 
 
 ^ Section 19 of the Austrian Constitution runs as follows: "All 
 races of the State enjoy equal rights {sind gleichberechtigt) and 
 every race has an inviolable right to assert its nationality and to 
 cultivate its language. The equal rights of all languages of the 
 country {landesubliche Sprachen) in school, office, and public life 
 are recognised by the State." 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 31 
 
 * 
 This leadership of the Magyars has rested upon a racial 
 
 monopoly of the most thoroughgoing and oppressive kind, 
 which has been rendered possible by a concentration of all 
 pohtical, social, and agrarian power in the hands of the 
 Magyar nobihty and the so-called " gentry " (a word which 
 since its introduction into Hungary has acquired a peculiar 
 indigenous flavour) and by their economic alHance mth the 
 Jews. Hungary, too, has its " Law of Equal Rights of the 
 NationaHties " (XLIV., 1868), which lays down many 
 admirable linguistic privileges in school, church, law court, 
 and administration. But its whole tenor is vitiated by 
 the simple fact that the Magyar language employs one and 
 the same word (magyar) for two essentially different con- 
 ceptions — Hungarian, the wide geographical term embracing 
 the whole State, and Magyar, the narrow racial term, 
 applicable only to one out of the many nationalities of the 
 country. The preamble insists that all citizens of Hungary 
 " form, from a political point of view, one nation, the indi- 
 visible unitary Magyar nation, of which every citizen is a 
 member, no matter to what nationality he belongs," and 
 it further quahfies all subsequent concessions by a vague 
 reference to " the unity of the country and the practical 
 possibility of government and administration." The law 
 thus deliberately confuses the political and ethnical con- 
 ceptions of the " nation," and denies from the outset the 
 existence of the non-Magyar nationalities as a pohtical 
 factor. Moreover, it is this section of the law which has 
 always been emphasised in the years that followed, while 
 its many linguistic and racial concessions have almost 
 withput exception remained a dead letter. Indeed, most 
 of the leading Magyar statesmen of the last forty years, 
 while declaiming about the liberty enjoyed by the non- 
 Magyar races of Hungary, have almost in the same breath 
 
32 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 admitted that tlie Law of Nationalities has not merely not 
 been enforced, but is incapable of fulfilment. 
 
 The intolerable nature of Magyar tyranny maybe summed 
 up in the following words, written at the height of the coali- 
 tion regime in Hungary (1906-1909) : 
 
 Primary and secondary education, instead of resting upon the 
 principle of instruction in the mother tongue, has been for a 
 generation past enlisted in the cause of Magyarisation ; the State 
 never erects non-Magyar Schools and only grants subsidies to 
 those aheady existing in order thereby to enforce a stricter 
 control. The local administration is in the hands of a narrow 
 and powerful caste, which by means of an illiberal franchise is 
 able to hold the non-Magyars in a permanent minority, and to 
 exclude them from the control of their local affairs ; the officials 
 treat the NationaUties as foreign interlopers, and show Uttle or 
 no consideration for their languages and national customs. A 
 far-reaching system of electoral corruption and gerrymandering, 
 backed by a comphcated and unequal franchise, makes it im- 
 possible for one-haK of the population to gain more than twenty- 
 five seats in Parhament,^ and concentrates all pohtical power into 
 the hands of a small clique of influential nobles and ecclesiastics, 
 professional poHticians and Jewish financiers. The dependence 
 of the judicature upon the executive renders the non-Magyar 
 leaders hable to continual vexation at the hands of the law ; 
 judges, prosecutors, and juries are all alike recruited from the 
 ranks of their bitterest enemies, and a hostile verdict is thus only 
 too often a foregone conclusion. The persecution of the non- 
 Magyar Press is carried on with the dehberate purpose of reducing 
 it to a state of bankruptcy or subservience. The absence of any 
 rights of association and assembly places the NationaUties at the 
 mercy of the authorities and renders infinitely more difficult the 
 task of organisation ; while the petty annoyances and restrictions 
 imposed upon those Slavs and Roumanians who remain loyal to 
 the language and traditions of their ancestors, embitter their 
 Hves and aggravate racial differences. ^ » 
 
 ^ In 1910 these 25 were reduced by sheer corruption and violence 
 to 8! 
 
 - Seton- Watson, " Racial Problems in Hungary," pp. 392-3. 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 33 
 
 The Slovak, Roumanian, Serb, German, and Ruthene 
 nationalists have long been political pariahs in Hungary ; 
 but persecution has not tamed them. No single incident 
 throws more hght upon their stubborn attitude and at 
 the same time upon the intolerable claims put forward 
 by official Hungary, than the notorious " Memorandum 
 Trial " of 1894. Two years before, the Committee of the 
 Roumanian National Party in Hungary had petitioned the 
 Monarch in a Memorandum recounting the many grievances 
 of their race, and when the Hungarian Cabinet barred their 
 access to the throne, had published the Memorandimi in 
 pamphlet form. This action was treated by the Govern- 
 ment as " incitement against the Magyar nationahty," and 
 the members of the Committee were tried before a Magyar 
 jury and sentenced to terms of imprisonment amounting to 
 a total of twenty-nine years. Dr. Ratziu, the party presi- 
 dent, declined to recognise the Court's jurisdiction, and 
 appealed to the pubhc opinion of the civiHsed world. " We 
 have acted," they declared, " solely as mandatories of the 
 Roumanian people, and an entire people cannot be brought 
 to justice. . ► . You have yourselves realised that it is 
 not a question of law but merely of force, and the world will 
 learn with astonishment that a court has been found to 
 judge men who were deprived of the possibiHty of having 
 defenders, , . . By your spirit of mediaeval intolerance, 
 by a racial fanaticism which has not its equal in Europe, 
 you will, if you condemn us, simply succeed in proving to 
 the world that the Magyars are a discordant note in the 
 concert of European nations." ^ A month after the trial 
 the Hungarian Government echpsed its previous record 
 by formally dissolving the Roumanian national party as a 
 disjoyal institution. Since then the party has been tacitly 
 > See *'Ra.cial Problems in Hungary," p. 473. 
 
34 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 allowed to revive, but ojSicial recognition of its existence 
 has been steadily withheld, and, indeed, when jDut forward 
 as a claim during the negotiations between Count Tisza and 
 the Roumanian leaders last winter, formed one of the many 
 stumbHng- blocks in the way of an understanding. The 
 Magyars have remained calmly oblivious of the fact that 
 to deny a nation the two elementary rights of petition and 
 political organisation is to challenge it to choose between 
 suicide and revolution. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the development of 
 Austria and Hungary has flowed in exactly opposite direc- 
 tions. While in Hungary the waves of Chauvinism beat 
 higher and higher, Austria has made steady progress 
 towards the ideal of racial toleration. There is still plenty 
 of friction, but even the most backward of her nationalities 
 has come to enjoy a freedom of movement and possibilities 
 of culture, which cannot even remotely be compared to the 
 bondage of their neighbours in Hungary. Austrian political 
 institutions have been hampered at every turn by racial 
 quarrels, but despite all the criticism which their barren- 
 ness evokes, they have broadened and deepened in recent 
 years. Except in two border provinces — Galicia and 
 Dalmatia, where special conditions prevail — Austria is far 
 freer in 1914 than in 1900. Above all, a whole school of 
 political theory has grown up on the vexed question of 
 racial minorities and their representation, and though 
 opinions differed widely as to the true solution of such 
 problems, there was a growing inclination to make Austria 
 the centre of experiments which, if successful, might have 
 transformed the whole problem of nationalism in Europe, 
 but which have been brutally exploded by the present 
 war. Politically, of course, the difference between the 
 two States is typified by the contrast between Austria's 
 
KACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 35 
 
 rapid adoption of universal suffrage in 1906, and the des- 
 perate and successful efforts of the Magyar oligarchy, at 
 first to prevent, and then, worse still, to undermine and 
 falsify its introduction in Hungary. 
 
 An Austro- Hungarian bank-note sums up the rival 
 ideals. One side bears an inscription in every language of 
 Austria, on the other the Magyar language is in solitary 
 grandeur. It thus stands for EquaHty versus Hegemony, 
 and at the same time for the rival habit of confessing and 
 of concealing the true facts of the situation. In Austria 
 there is room for Polish, Czech, Roumanian national feeling, 
 though of course within limits which ardent nationahsts 
 would fain shake off. In Hungary, in the words of a 
 recent writer, " our nationalities can never substitute any 
 other culture for the Magyar, for a special Serb, Roumanian, 
 or Slovak culture does not and cannot exist." ^ Once more 
 the hapless word " culture," which has become the night- 
 mare of this war ! The Magyar conception of the State, 
 then, resolves itself into a monstrous vampire which battens 
 on the renegades of other races. To this the non-Magyar 
 races long opposed the modest claim for equal linguistic 
 rights and the fulfilment of the Law of Nationalities. But 
 they have been driven steadily in a separatist direction, 
 and Magyar tyranny has embroiled not only Hungary but 
 the whole Monarchy with the neighbouring Balkan States. 
 Even before the war, which their evil pohcy has done so 
 much to evoke, the Magyars had become a liability rather 
 than an asset of the Dual Monarchy.^ 
 
 The last chapter contained a summary of the national 
 movement among the Southern Slavs, uniting in a common 
 
 1 E. Baloghy, "Magyar Culture and the Nationalities," p. 210 
 (in Magyar), 
 
 2 H.W. Steed, "The Hapsburg Monarchy," p. 284. 
 
36 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 sentiment the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes of the Dual 
 Monarchy and the Serbs of the two independent kingdoms, 
 Serbia and Montenegro. This movement and Austria- 
 Hungary's fatal policy of thwarting Southern Slav develop- 
 ment, have been the real underlying causes of that 
 Austro-Serbian dispute, upon which the murder of the 
 Archduke acted as the spark in a powder magazine. To-day 
 we are witnessing the baptism of fire of a new nation in 
 the commonwealth of Europe. Gallant Serbia has assumed 
 the same task which Piedmont successfully accomplished 
 over fifty years ago. The same applies to the Eoumanian 
 question, which, as the result of the two Balkan wars, had 
 begun to develop on parallel Hues with the Southern Slav 
 question. To every patriotic Roumanian on both sides of 
 the frontier the deliverance of Transylvania and the adjacent 
 counties of Hungary from the Magyar yoke, and even 
 the complete reaHsation of Roumanian unity, have long 
 been cherished as the chief hope of the future. To-day 
 the significant speech of the new Eang to a deputation of 
 Roumanian professors — to the efiect that no responsible 
 person in Roumania could be suspected of opposing the 
 realisation of national unity — shows the direction in which 
 the wind is blowing. His words are but a faint echo of 
 a phrase used five years ago by one of the most distinguished 
 hving Roumanian pohticians. " If I thought," he said, " that 
 Transylvania could ever conceivably become Magyarised, I 
 should give up politics, for it would no longer be worth 
 while for us Roumanians of the kingdom to go on living." 
 Until the outbreak of war it had always been admis- 
 sible to hope that Austria would show sufficient energy 
 and statesmanship to solve these two problems in a 
 " Habsburg " sense, though the events of the Balkan wars 
 had reduced this hope to vanishing point and compelled 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNaARY 37 
 
 the friends of Austria to revise many of their conclusions. 
 If to-day the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy is being 
 seriously discussed throughout Europe, that is at least 
 partly due to the pessimism which led its own leading 
 statesmen and politicians to reckon openly with such a 
 possibihty even a year ago. It is right; to point out for 
 the last time that the blame for failure falls far more 
 heavily upon Hungary than upon Austria, and that large 
 sections of opinion in Vienna — ^including the late Heir 
 Apparent himself — were openly friendly to the Roumanians 
 and favoured verv considerable concessions to the Southern 
 Slavs. But their platonic good intentions did little or 
 nothing to redeem a situation which grew monthly more 
 critical. Austria to-day cannot separate herself from the 
 doom of the Magyars. She is being judged, not by the 
 unrealised dreams of the Archduke, or by the tolerant 
 views of her political theorists,^ but by the inexorable 
 laws of fate. Her statesmen have had due warning, but 
 have persisted in the old paths. Their false conceptions 
 of nationahsm have but strengthened its disintegrating 
 force. So far as Austria-Hungary is concerned, this war 
 is in itself a proof that the policy of racial dominance and 
 forcible assimilation is morally bankrupt ; but only the 
 future can show whether those nations which are rising 
 phoenix-like from the funeral pyre of a vanishing era will 
 prove themselves worthy of the great task which history 
 has assigned to them — the reconciliation of the ideal of 
 national unity with that of full liberty for racial minorities. 
 
 1 See the works of Baron Eotvos, Fischliof, " Rudolf Springer " 
 (Dr. Carl Renner) — now State Chancellor and head of the Austrian 
 Peace Delegation, — Aurel Popovici, and Otto Bauer. 
 
38 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Balkan Nationality and Turkish Oppression 
 
 In the Balkan Peninsula the problem of nationality 
 has been complicated by religion. During the Middle 
 Ages every Balkan race took its Christianity from Byzan- 
 tium, and indeed the first great Slav apostles, Cyril and 
 Methodius, came from Macedonia. The Turks in the great 
 days of their dominion were a caste, half feudal, half 
 mihtary, which owed many of its best recruits to the 
 human tribute levied from its subject population. To 
 avoid all 'danger of assistance for the conquered Christians 
 from the CathoHc West, they wisely constituted the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople the intermediary of all their 
 relations with their Orthodox subjects, and thus gave free 
 play for four centuries to the Hellenising tendencies of 
 the Eastern Church. Such was the foundation of that cor- 
 rupt Phanariot ^ regime, which reduced the national and 
 religious life of the peninsula to such utter stagnation and 
 has left its corroding mark upon the politics of every 
 Balkan nation. Under the double influence of the Turkish 
 conqueror and the Greek confessor, nationahty long lay 
 dormant, though it should be added that, despite its 
 ignorance and sloth, the Orthodox clergy, wherever it 
 had not been denationahsed, did more than any other 
 force to keep the flickering torch from being altogether 
 quenched. The Turkish conquest varied in completeness. 
 In Serbia the entire nobihty was literally exterminated, 
 while in Bosnia it accepted Islam in order to save its lands. 
 Among the Serbs and Bulgars a " ray ah " who neglected 
 to dismount on meeting one of the conquering race was 
 
 risking death on the spot ; while in Wallachia the Turkish 
 
 * 
 
 ^ So called from the Phanar, or lighthouse quarter of Stambul, 
 where the Patriarch resides. 
 
EACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 39 
 
 suzerainty was of so loose a character that the building of 
 a mosque in Bucarest was never tolerated. 
 
 So long as the Janissary system flourished in full vigour, 
 risings were wellnigh impossible ; but its decay during the 
 eighteenth century had the double effect of weakening the 
 Turkish military system and of strengthening the Christian 
 population which had hitherto suffered from this constant 
 drain. With the close of the century came the first 
 mutterings of the storm. The long rivalry of Austria 
 and Russia for influence in the Balkans, the French 
 Revolution and the propagation of its doctrines through- 
 out Europe, were the stimulants of the nationalist move- 
 ment which the new century heralded. . Since then Balkan 
 history is an unbroken succession of waves, in which first 
 the Serbs, then the G-reeks and Roumanians, and last of 
 all the Bulgarians, shook off the Turkish yoke and laid 
 the foundations of the national States of to-day. 
 
 Sympathy is sometimes expressed for the Turk in the 
 long chain of disasters which has gradually robbed him 
 of his former heritage in Europe, and his apologists are 
 fond of extolling the dignity and virtues of the individual 
 Turkish peasant and contrasting them with the unlovely 
 qualities of the enslaved rayah. But no efforts can conceal 
 the supremely negative nature of the Turkish character, 
 its utter incapacity for constructive work, its periodical 
 lapses into ungovernable savagery. Above all else, the 
 Turk has shown himself ignorant of the very elements of 
 the art of government. *' For forms of government let 
 fools contest, that which is best administered is best " ; 
 and if we apply the poet's test, there is no coimtry where 
 the verdict will be so annihilating as in Turkey. The 
 final and unanswerable condemnation of Turkish rule 
 consists not in recounting the periodic massacres and 
 
40 EUBOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 outbreaks which its discontented subjects have provoked, 
 but in contrasting the material and moral condition of 
 the various provinces before and after the conquest, and 
 still more their condition a generation before and a 
 generation after the expulsion of the Turks. Every pro- 
 vince which they have held has become a desert under 
 their bhghting influence and has only blossomed again when 
 the blight has been removed. The rose garden replaces 
 the dunghill, and flourishing modern cities the foul and 
 mouldering hamlets of a century ago. Whether it be 
 Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Roumania, Bosnia, or 
 Bulgaria, the story is invariably the same. The proverb 
 which declares that grass does not grow where the Otto- 
 man hoofs have trod, merely gives poetic expression to 
 a fact which is as indisputable as the law of gravity. The 
 Turk has never understood any principle save that of 
 physical force ; by the sword he built up his empire, and 
 by the sword he is losing it. 
 
 For a brief period the Young Turkish revolution of 1908 
 was acclaimed as upsetting all such theories and as in- 
 augurating the dawn of freedom for all the races of Turkey. 
 But it speedily JDecame apparent that the chamber which 
 the Young Turks had so noisily swept and garnished was 
 to become the haunt of seven devils worse than the first. 
 On the one hand, the lavish phrases of liberty and 
 fraternity which ushered in the new regime were soon 
 replaced by an open policy of Turkification, which employed 
 all the most approved methods of Magyar corruption and 
 added the practices of organised conspiracy and assassination. 
 On the other hand, the revolution threatened the national 
 aspirations of the Slav and Greek populations, since a 
 regeneration of Turkey would have postponed indefinitely 
 the hope of reunion with their kinsmen in the independent 
 
RACE PROBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 41 
 
 Balkan States. Events have forced these facts upon an 
 unwilling public opinion, but what is not yet fully reahsed 
 is the essentially un-Turldsh and un-Moslem character of 
 the Committee of Union and Progress, which has been the 
 soul — ^the dme damnee — of the whole movement. Among 
 its leaders there is hardly a single pure-blooded Turk. 
 Enver, the murderer of his generalissimo, is of Polish 
 origin : Djavid belongs to the curious Salonican sect of 
 the Donmeh : Carasso is a Jew : Talaat is an Islamised 
 Bulgarian gipsy : Achmet Riza, one of the group's 
 temporary figureheads, is half Circassian and half Magyar, 
 and a positivist of the school of Comte. And it is such a 
 committee which presumes to dictate to the Khahf of 
 Islam, in German interests, a Holy War against the leading 
 Mohammedan power in the world ! 
 
 Despite the inherent defects of the Young Turkish 
 organisation, it, however, is only right to admit that the 
 task of introducLQg real reforms might have proved too 
 great even for much more liberal and enhghtened states- 
 men. The legacy left to them by previous generations, 
 and above all by the long Hamidian despotism, had 
 paralysed all the tendencies that could be described even 
 remotely as " liberal." The abstract ideal of reform on 
 Western Hues was in itself a noble one, but could not be 
 infused into a State whose very essence was a blend of 
 theocracy and militarism. It will always remaia a matter 
 of deep regret that the healthier sections of " Young 
 Turkey " lost their original leadership and thus failed to 
 confer the benefits of a progressive regime upon the many 
 component races of the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 Instead of this, the internal poHcy of the Young Turks 
 only too soon came to rest upon forcible Turkification, 
 emphasised by the removal of its political opponents. The 
 
42 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 long list of its victims was opened by Shemshi Pasha and 
 a number of '* Liberal " journalists and minor politicians, 
 and culminated in Nazim Pasha and Mahmud Shevket 
 Pasha. The names of the Khedive and of Noel and Charles 
 Buxton are on the shorter list of unsuccessful attempts ; 
 while certain mysterious incidents connected with the royal 
 murders of Salonica and Sarajevo have opened up hitherto 
 unsuspected vistas of intrigue and crime. 
 
 The art of assassination is merely a refinement of political 
 craft. The same methods, employed en gros in Macedonia, 
 provoked the Albanian risings of 1911 and 1912 and pro- 
 duced a coalition of the Balkan States against Turkey. In 
 the war that followed, Turkish rule was finally expelled 
 from Macedonia — ^leaving behind it, it is true, an unhappy 
 legacy of hatred between the Christian races. But the old 
 methods had become ingrained in the Turkish system, and 
 since the recovery of Adrianople as a result of the second 
 Balkan war, the Bulgarian element in Northern Thrace has 
 been almost literally extirpated, and the success of this 
 policy has encouraged the Committee to pursue scarcely 
 less drastic methods of " elimination " against the Greeks 
 of Thrace and Asia Minor. It must, of course, be admitted 
 that massacre and expropriation are much the most effect- 
 ive means of solving the problem of nationality ; and 
 there is every prospect that they will be applied this winter 
 to what is left of the Armenian population of Asia Minor. 
 We can only hope that the Russian offensive will triumph 
 over the enormous physical obstacles of the Caucasian 
 frontier, before the Kurds and Lazes have worked their 
 will upon Armenia. 
 
 There is yet another national question which awaits 
 solution at the hands of the Turks, but which can no longer 
 be solved by the sword. The Arab nationahst movement 
 
EACE PKOBLEMS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGAKY 43 
 
 is already a factor of permanent importance, with serious 
 possibilities in the not distant future ; and it is by no means 
 improbable that the Arabs — who, unlike the Turks, have 
 in their past history developed a great civilisation and 
 shown themselves to be a constructive, not a mere destruc- 
 tive force — may wrest the Khahfate from the hands of a 
 dynasty which they never loved and of a parasitic and aUen 
 clique which is in no way representative of Islam. Nor 
 can we afford to ignore the possible effects of such an Arab 
 movement upon the fate of Palestine and the future o£ the 
 healthy Jewish nationahsm which is at length striking root 
 in its original home. 
 
 In accepting the role of Germany's vassal, Turkey has 
 been hurled to her doom by a tiny camarilla ; for the vic- 
 tory of either group in the present struggle is hkely to prove 
 fatal to her empire. Germany has long regarded Turkey as 
 one of her most effective instruments against Britain and 
 would fain exploit Islam in a campaign for world-dominion. 
 The folly of such a dream can best be expressed in the words 
 of a weU-known German Socialist, written under the im- 
 pression of Turkey's defeat in 1912. " German world- 
 policy has lost its sense and aim. On the battlefields of 
 Macedonia and Thrace German Imperiahsm was beaten 
 side by side with the Turkish army. If Germany were a 
 democratic country then her government, which had 
 known so Httle of the working forces of the Orient, which 
 for the second time had been surprised and befooled by 
 an Oriental upheaval, which had staked so much German 
 money, so much German strength, so much German pres- 
 tige upon a lost cause, and which had misled the whole 
 policy of the nation for two decades — ^this government 
 would have been swept away by the wrath of the nation. 
 But in Junker-ridden Great-Prussia the barren incapacity 
 
44 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of a diplomacy which is not responsible to the nation is 
 free to pose stiU further as statesmanlike wisdom. The 
 German bourgeoisie has itself renounced the supervision 
 and control of the poHcy which is intended to serve its 
 interests." ^ 
 
 Is it mere folly to express the hope that a time will 
 come when the German people will repudiate the arrogant 
 claims put forward by its ruling class and, reverting to the 
 ideals of its greatest poets and thinkers, will realise that 
 nationality and culture are not mere gross material things, 
 to be imposed on others by the violence of the " mailed 
 fist," but spiritual graces which owe their triumph and 
 their inspiration to the inward vision ? The statesmen of 
 Europe will have built in vain if from the wreckage of this 
 war there does not rise a new and higher conception of the 
 idea of Nationahty. 
 
 1 Otto Bauer, " Der Balkankreig und die deutsche Weltpolitik," 
 p. 47. Otto Bauer, who was foF two years a prisoner in Russia, and 
 was set free by the Revolution of 1917, returned to Vienna in time 
 to succeed Victor Adler as Foreign Secretary of the new German- 
 Austrian RepubUc. He is best known for his brilliant treatise 
 *' Die NationaUtatenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie.". 
 
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE FEDERAL 
 
 SOLUTION 1 
 
 " The problem of converting a league forcibly created 
 under the stress of military necessity into a free civil com- 
 munity is still unsolved. It was this problem which 
 kindled the world- war." So writes the German author 
 of a remarkable series of articles on " Austria-Hungary 
 and the Eacial Struggle," which have been recently appear- 
 ing in the Frankfurter Zeitung ; and he goes on to quote 
 with approval an equally illuminating passage from the 
 speech of a German deputy in the Austrian Parhament. 
 " The Austrian problem is to-day no longer an Austrian, 
 but a European problem, and indeed the world problem. 
 It is certain that all foreign policy tends more and more 
 to revolve round this Austrian problem which always 
 stands in the centre of all peace conditions, proposals, and 
 discussions." 
 
 The units of what we now know as " Austria " could 
 never have been pieced together save under the stress of 
 a common Turkish danger. But. the Habsburg mission 
 against the Crescent has long since ended, and a new 
 justification, a new raison d'etre is needed. Before the 
 war it had seemed to many — among them the present 
 writer — ^that this lay " in the vindication of equal rights 
 
 1 From The Contemporary Review, No. 627, March 1918. 
 
 45 
 
46 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and liberties for all the races committed to its charge." 
 When in 1908 I wrote that " the abandonment of this 
 mission woiild endanger the very existence of a great Power 
 upon the middle Danube," I could not as yet foresee how 
 lamentably complete would be the abandonment, or what 
 relentless forces it would bring into play. 
 
 Despite the regrettable tendency of Western diplomatists 
 and publicists both before and during the war to treat the 
 various political problems of the Continent as forming so 
 many watertight compartments, the events of the past 
 four years have forced upon us a recognition of their intimate 
 interconnection. This is especially the case in Austria- 
 Hungary, where, if we attempt to analyse the situation 
 more closely, there is what Austrian public opinion itself 
 now quite openly describes as a " State crisis," centring 
 round the question whether the very existence of the State 
 is possible in its present form : the problem of Dualism, 
 centring round the relations between Vienna and Budapest : 
 and a whole series of national questions, each of which 
 dovetails into the other, and reacts upon the Dual System, 
 and no one of which can be solved without raising the 
 others and disturbing the balance of forces between them. 
 Moreover, each of these sub-problems — Poland, Bohemia, 
 Jugoslavia, the Ukraine, Italia Irredenta, and Transylvania 
 — is inextricably bound up with one or more problems 
 whose international character not even the veriest stickler 
 for diplomatic tradition could deny. If Austria-Hungary 
 were an island in the Pacific, isolated from the outer world, 
 it would be possible for us to regard with profound sym- 
 pathy the task of statesmen confronted with problems of 
 so complex and unparalleled a nature, and to watch the 
 success or failure of their experiments with the calm of 
 a remote Martian. As matters stand, however, Austria- 
 
48 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Hungary is, to the general misfortune, a central and 
 essential part of the machinery upon which the life of 
 the European community depends. That it is clogged 
 and out of gear, gravely afiects the efi6.ciency of the whole 
 machine, and the general interest demands its reparation 
 or remodelling. This fact would have been recognised 
 long ago but for the fatal English tendency to ignore 
 Europe and to concentrate attention upon any or every 
 other portion of the globe. Under the stress of war our 
 population has been engaged in acquiring a European 
 mind and outlook : and the true test of success in this 
 attempt is appHed by the attitude adopted towards Russia 
 on the one hand and Austria-Hungary on the other. Both 
 States are to-day in a process of dissolution, though owing 
 to fundamental differences of geography, climate, historic 
 development, social structure and, not least, temperament 
 and psychology, the two processes do not keep absolute 
 pace with each other. Moreover, the accidents of war 
 have pressed more heavily upon the one than upon the 
 other and made it in the one case infinitely more easy for 
 the outsider to read the writing upon the wall. But it i« 
 little short of an accident that Russia in the one belligerent 
 group has collapsed earlier than Austria-Hungary in the 
 other, and it was only the marvellous military efficiency 
 of Germany, exploiting to thefull the advantages conferred 
 by unity of command and interior lines, that saved the 
 Dual Monarchy from disaster on no less than six separate 
 occasions. 
 
 Austria-Hungary is a Great Power numbering 52,000,000 
 inhabitants, and yet, though we have been at war with 
 her for three and a half years, she is stiU the subject of the 
 most profound and amazing misconceptions. " Austria is 
 not a State," said Prince Gortchakov more than a generation 
 
THE FEDERAL SOLUTION 49 
 
 ago, " it is only a Government." " Austria is not a State, 
 but a Family," said the still wiser Italians in days when 
 they had bitter cause to understand. Most of the great 
 States of Europe have owed their internal consolidation in 
 large measure to the directing force of some famous dynasty : 
 but while in France or in England the Capets and the 
 Plantagenets merely gave a direction of their own to 
 irresistible natural forces, '* Austria " — the name Austria- 
 Hungary only dates from 1867 — ^is essentially the creation 
 of the House of HabsburgA It is true that but for the 
 imminence of the Turkish danger even the Habsburgs 
 might have failed to rally round them so many discordant 
 elements ; but in any case it cannot be contested that the 
 Habsburg Monarchy as we know it to-day is the product 
 of five centuries of dynastic policy, untiringly pursued by 
 the parallel methods of conquest, marriage, purchase, and 
 exchange. Throughout their history the connecting link 
 between the motley array of provinces and races has been 
 the Imperial House : its interests have always been the 
 paramount consideration, and its control of foreign policy 
 has been virtually unrestrained. Galicia was annexed as 
 a counterweight to the Polish acquisitions of Prussia and 
 Russia : Salzburg, Trent, and Brixen were a Catholic 
 monarch's spoils when the ecclesiastical domains were in 
 the melting-pot : the Bukovina was the fruit of a bargain 
 with the Porte : Dalmatia, Lombardy, and Venetia were a 
 consolation for the loss of the Netherlands : Bosnia, and 
 the Balkan ambitions which it involved, were in their turn 
 an atonement for losses in Italy and Germany ; and so 
 to-day the young Emperor is playing for the Csown of 
 Poland and perhaps even of the Ukraine, just as his late 
 uncle was credited with the design of carving out a West 
 Balkan Kingdom for young Max of Hohenberg. Those 
 
 E • 
 
50 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 who judge foreign countries by Western standards will be 
 impressed by the twenty-three legislative bodies of the 
 Habsburg Monarchy ; but those who look beneath the 
 surface will realise that poHcy has always evaded their 
 control and that their mushroom growth, while it may have 
 obscured, has not availed to alter the outlines of dynastic 
 statecraft. President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George have 
 made more than one uncompHmentary reference to the 
 Congress of Vienna : but the general public does not yet 
 seem to have realised that it was in Vienna that the Congress 
 sat, that it is in Vienna that its traditions survive in their 
 most robust form, and that the atmosphere which generates 
 such traditions is perhaps the foremost obstacle to a new 
 order in Europe. 
 
 In the pursuit of its policy the Habsburg dynasty relies 
 upon four main factors — the aristocracy, the army, the 
 Church, and the bureaucracy. The aristocracy : which in 
 Austria — with certain notable exceptions — is essentially 
 " Habsburgian " rather than " Austrian " in composition,! 
 and which in Hungary is fully conscious that it owes its 
 social and racial hegemony to the tolerance of the Crown. 
 The army : whose officers form a peculiar class apart — not 
 a mere arrogant aristocratic caste Uke their Prussian col- 
 leagues, but no less effectually dissevered from every tie 
 and every tradition save that of devotion to the ruling 
 House. The Church : which for centuries past has accepted 
 without a murmur from the Habsburgs those very restric- 
 tions whose assertion brought Henry IV. to Canossa, but 
 which owes to them its inordinate riches and the privileges 
 which it short-sightedly prefers to the inspiring position 
 
 ^ Such names as Taaffe, Clam, Montecuccoli, Odescalchi, Nugent, 
 Loudon, Mercy, may serve as reminders that the House of Habsburg 
 has recruited its nobles from every nation in Europe. 
 
THE FEDERAL SOLUTION 51 
 
 that open championsliip of national aspirations might any 
 day assure to it. The bureaucracy : easy-going, inefficient, 
 and endlesslj^ obstructive — which successive rulers have 
 built up on the model described by Francis I. as " Patriots 
 for me," and which has become sufficiently detached from 
 the hfe of the nations among whom it lives to accept the 
 name of " Austria " which the majority of them so heartily 
 repudiate. In the words of Treitschke, " all the foundations 
 of this State belong to a time which is no more." It is a 
 relic of the Middle Ages, and those who are labouring for 
 its preservation are inspired, consciously or unconsciously, 
 by the same ideas of legitimacy and authority which stood 
 behind the pohce-State of Metternich, the rule of Radetzky 
 in Lombardy, of Khuen and Cuvaj in Croatia, and which 
 involved Aehrenthal and his incompetent successors in a 
 Balkan policy which has set Europe ablaze. 
 
 In other countries there is an appeal from the Crown 
 to the nation : but there is no such thing as an Austro- 
 Hungarian nation ; and even an " Austrian " nation 
 exists solely in the imagination of a few thousand a-national 
 bureaucrats such as Dr. von Seidler and Jiis colleagues ; 
 while in Hungary the pohtical " nation " as yet consists 
 of the dominant Magyars, to the strict exclusion of the 
 non-Magyar majority. If, as historians are fond of assert- 
 ing, there is a natural tendency for the conceptions of nation 
 and State to coincide, then there are few countries where 
 the development is so abnormal as in Austria-Hungary, 
 where for a whole generation past the national conscious- 
 ness of Czech and Southern Slav, of ItaUan and Roumanian, 
 of Pole and Ukrainian has measured itself more and more 
 resolutely with that of the dominant Germans and Magyars, 
 while the sense of common citizenship has dwindled almost 
 to vanishing point. 
 
52 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Moreover, constitutional forms have acted upon Austria 
 as a dissolvent, since they inevitably strengthened the 
 corroding forces of nationality. " Dualism, the foundation 
 of the present structure " (we quote once more from a 
 German writer), " rested on the assumption that in the 
 Austrian half the Germans, in the Hungarian half the 
 Magyars would permanently be able to rule." During the 
 fifty years which Dualism has lasted, the parity which it 
 estabhshed on paper has been purely fictitious. The 
 system has only proved workable when one or other of the 
 two scales was tUted high in air, and in practice the 
 balance has always been weighted down in favour of 
 Hungary. The Crown not only found its interest to lie 
 in allying itself with one against the other, but was soon 
 confronted with the impossibility of governing in any other 
 way, and was quick to perceive the increased influence 
 which accrued to it from the fact. That it was the Magyars 
 rather than the Germans whom Francis Joseph almost 
 invariably selected for this tacit understanding lay in the 
 contrast between the political, racial, and social situation 
 in Austria and in Hungary. While in Hungary the Magyars 
 found in the Ausgleich an instrument for pressing their 
 monopoly of power at the expense of the non-Magyar 
 majority, in Austria the Germans slowly lost groimd 
 against the non-German nations, partly as a result of dissen- 
 sions within their own ranks, partly because there was not 
 the same disparity in social, economic, and intellectual 
 progress between German and non-German as between 
 Magyar and non-Magyar. Moreover, the impotence into 
 which racial strife plunged the Austrian Parliament made 
 the Magyars all the more firmly resolved to exclude their 
 subject races from all share in pohtical power. Thus the 
 Magyars, inspired in all national questions by firm will and 
 
THE FEDERAL SOLUTION 53 
 
 unity of purpose, stood as a solid phalanx against the 
 confused medley of warring groups which rendered govern- 
 ment in Austria so hopeless. 
 
 The most interesting result of this has been in the sphere 
 of foreign policy. There has never been any question of 
 a real constitutional control of policy, but rather of periodic 
 collusion between Budapest and the Hofburg. The Delega- 
 tions are cumbersome and ineffective, and at moments 
 of crisis are often placed before an accompHshed fact. 
 Since their creation there have been four great international 
 crises in which the Mdnarchy was directly concerned : the 
 Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, the Bosnian annexation 
 crisis of 1908, the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, and the fatal 
 month of July 1914. In the first and third of these the 
 Delegations revealed their utter impotence ; in the second 
 they only met many months after all decisions had been 
 taken ; while in the last case they were ignored for over 
 three years of a world-war and one year of a new reign. 
 In them, even when they do meet, the representative 
 principle has been so filtered down as to render their 
 decisions wellnigh valueless as an index of public opinion, 
 At best they offer a platform for a few firework speeches of 
 criticism : but their role has rarely been other than negative, 
 and though their attitude may sometimes weaken a Foreign 
 Minister's position, it has never even remotely affected his 
 selection. In a word, they are merely a convenient ' ' bUnd 
 for the personal policy of the Crown in foreign affairs. Ever 
 since 1867, behind all the seeming divergence of view on 
 burning internal problems, the poHcy of the State as a whole 
 has been determined by a steady understanding between 
 the Crown and the Magyar oligarchy, who have always 
 secured a free hand at home by supporting the dynasty 
 abroad. It was Magyar influence that vetoed intervention 
 
54 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 on the French side in 1870 ; that upset the federal experi- 
 ment of Hohenwart in 1871 ; that laid the foundation of 
 the Central Alliance with Bismarck and determined the 
 Berhn settlement of 1878 ; that influenced the Monarchy's 
 Balkan attitude throughout the 'eighties. Above all, it 
 was Magyar influence that decided the Dual Monarchy's 
 anti-Slav policy during the past decade, introduced naked 
 absolutism in Croatia, and repression throughout the 
 Jugoslav countries, and thus rendered a conflict with Serbia 
 and Russia inevitable. In a word, under Andrassy and 
 K41noky Austro-Hungarian policy was constructively 
 Magyar ; under the negative Goluchowski it avoided aU 
 that could offend or alarm Magyar sentiment ; under 
 Aehrenthal it was once more definitely anti-Slav. Under 
 the feeble Berchtold the Slavophobe tendency was fanned 
 into flame by the joint efforts of Berlin and Budapest, and 
 his successor Burian was simply the nominee and faithful 
 henchman of Count Tisza, who as Hungarian Premier 
 (1913-17) was one of the main fomenters of the Great 
 War, and who even to-day, out of office, remains the 
 dominant factor in Hungarian politics. Nothing illustrates 
 more clearly the realism and energy of Hungarian statesmen 
 than the skill with which they hedged round and inveigled 
 their former enemy. Count Czernin, until he became the 
 foremost champion of the internal status quo and the Alliance 
 with Germany upon which it rests. 
 
 Francis Joseph during his long reign was frequently 
 influenced by personal motives in his methods of selection 
 and rejection ; but though always following the line of 
 least resistance and often hesitating and lacking in moral 
 courage, he at least had acquired vast experience and knew 
 his own inner mind. In his successor sudden impulse 
 cannot make up for profound political ignorance and 
 
THE FEDERAL SOLUTION 55 
 
 inexperience, and his very devotion to dynastic interests 
 renders him all the more dependent upon a tiny Court 
 camarilla. 
 
 From time to time voices were heard suggesting that we 
 might " detach," or negotiate with, Austria-Hungary, and 
 on this point, as on so many others, extreme reactionaries 
 whose secret aim is to preserve the Middle Ages in the 
 twentieth century, and well-meaning but muddle-headed 
 Liberals who actually allow themselves to be deceived by 
 an ultra-Conservative aristocrat's comparison between 
 Czernin and Trotski, join hands in defence of " Felix 
 Austria." It has been my object in the preceding pages 
 to indicate briefly the real factors with whom they would 
 have to deal and for whose salvation they are consciously 
 or unconsciously working. Two facts may serve to illus- 
 trate the complete divorce between these ruling factors 
 and the broad masses of the population. When in 
 December 1917 the Czech, Jugoslav, and Ukrainian Depu- 
 ties in the Reichsrat unanimously put forward the demand 
 that elected representatives of the various nations in the 
 Monarchy should take part in the peace negotiations at 
 Brest, such a claim was expressly repudiated not only by 
 the Joint Foreign Minister, but also by the Austrian Premier, 
 who treated it as contrary to the constitutional spirit. The 
 watchword of self-determination, which has bulked so 
 largely both at Brest and in the rival programmes of 
 belligerent statesmen, was defined by Count Czernin and 
 his colleagues as only applicable to states with their existing 
 boundaries, and under no circumstances to the nations 
 which form such states' component parts. Lest there 
 should be any misapprehension with regard to his meaning, 
 Count Czernin insisted not only on the doctriae of non- 
 interference in its most uncompromising form, and upon 
 
56 EUROPE m THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the absolute territorial integrity of the Dual Monarchy, 
 but also upon the inviolable nature*of the Dual System. 
 Successive Hungarian and Austrian Premiers invoked the 
 authority of the Crown for their adherence to this policy, 
 thus recklessly dragging it into the political arena. Indeed, 
 Dr. von Seidler was very explicit on the subject, and 
 committed his Government to maintaining the existing 
 boundaries of the seventeen provinces or " Crownlands " of 
 Austria. Needless to say, this rendered utterly impossible 
 even the beginnings of regroupment on a racial basis inside 
 the Monarchy. Thus after the mountains had given forth 
 portentous rumours of constitutional reform and racial 
 autonomy in a " New Austria," there appeared the 
 ridiculous mouse of national autonomy in seventeen water- 
 tight compartments. 
 
 Thus insistence upon Dualism amounted to an emphatic 
 repudiation, by all the determining factors in the State, of 
 the federal solution for Austria-Hungary. In particular it 
 was an answer to the programmes put forward on May 30, 
 1917, by the four Slav groups — programmes which 
 demanded, without a single dissentient voice, unity and 
 independence for Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Southern Slavs, 
 and Ukrainians alike, and which based their claim upon 
 the right of every people to determine its own way of 
 allegiance. During the winter of 1917-18 the conflict of 
 ideas was still further accentuated. On January 6 the 
 Czechs held what was virtually a Constituent Assembly at 
 Prague, at which all their deputies and leaders without 
 exception were present, and which, while reaffirming 
 Czecho-Slovak independence as their aim, declared that 
 they no longer recognised the Reichsrat as the supreme 
 political authority. Not long after a congress of 1,100 
 delegates of the Slovene People's Party — a party which 
 
THE FEDEEAL SOLUTION 57 
 
 has tlie open bacMng of the Prince-Bisliop of Laibach and 
 the whole of the Slovene higher clergy — unanimously 
 adopted resolutions in favour of the full union of all Jugo- 
 slavs (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) in a single state. 
 
 On the morrow of the great Austrian strike the Premier 
 sought to gain favour with the German Nationalists by 
 denouncing the Czech prograrome as hostile to the State 
 and the dynasty and as one which every Government will 
 resist with all its strength. This open declaration of war 
 upon the Czechs — with whom the Jugoslavs were in the 
 fullest accord — assumed a still more serious complexion in 
 view of the arrangements concluded between the Central 
 Powers and the Ukrainian Rada. As a result of the assign- 
 ment of Polish territory to the half-fledged Republic of 
 Kiev, the Austrian Poles, who for many months previously 
 had observed a strict neutrality towards the Czecho- German 
 dispute, were thrown into fierce hostility towards Vienna, 
 and thus deprived Dr. von Seidler of his last chance of a 
 .working majority in Parliament. 
 
 Thus by the early spring of 1918 political disintegratifen, 
 accentuated tenfold by the desperate economic situation, 
 was visible on all sides, and little or no attempt was made 
 to conceal the fact that Austria, in the words of the Arheiter 
 Zeitung, was confronted by a " State crisis," instead of the 
 perennial political crises of the past. " The burning 
 question," wrote Herr Hugo Ganz, in the Frankfurter 
 Zeitung, " is, under what conditions Austria is still at all 
 possible as a state." " For Government and State only 
 the German bourgeoisie stiU stand up " — so runs a later 
 commeiit — " and there is a danger lest the Germans may 
 lose their interest in the State," and find it under existing 
 conditions simply uninhabitable. 
 
 Here we come up against one of the fundamental facts 
 
58 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of the Austrian situation, which seems to have been com- 
 pletely ignored in this country save in the writings of Mr. 
 Wickham Steed. The Germans of Austria, true to the 
 advice of Bismarck, have been content to promote Greater 
 German interests by remaining in Austria so long as any- 
 thing material was left of their political hegemony. But 
 while among each of the Slav groups national feeling 
 triumphed over party and class distinctions, and led, in 
 each case, to concentration for a common aim, the rift 
 between Social Democracy and the bourgeoisie split the 
 Germans into two irreconcilable camps, while, to complete 
 the disaster, the bourgeoisie fell into a number of brawling 
 groups. The result was that the Germans were definitely 
 forced on to the defensive in Parliament, and could only 
 hope to preserve their hegemony by a defiance of the 
 Constitution and a more or less open report to absolutism. 
 Their uncompromising refusal to discuss the bare idea of 
 federaUsm placed the Seidler Government — for which it 
 was increasingly dijOStcult to find any substitute — ^in a 
 serious impasse. It was no longer a question of party 
 tactics or even of inter-racial manoeuvres. Early in 1918 
 a situation had been reached where one of the two dominant 
 races, the Germans of Austria, finding that the machine of 
 State had broken down, and that the only alternatives to 
 the present situation were federalism or disruption, saw 
 themselves driven to the conclusion that, even from its 
 own selfish point of view, the latter was preferable, since it 
 would unite them to the German Empire and rescue them 
 from the position of a minority in a mainly Slav State. 
 The same calculation weighed more and more with the 
 Magyars, who, rather than submit to a definite collapse of 
 the German hegemony in Austria, would prefer complete 
 severance between Austria and Hungary, in the calculation 
 
THE FEDEKAL SOLUTION 59 
 
 that in an independent Hungary the Magyars could still 
 hold their own by means of a close alliance with the German 
 Empire. 
 
 The young Emperor might play with the idea of a 
 federal solution, but there was no real basis for such a game : 
 and indeed long before the final collapse it was obvious to 
 close students of political forces in the Dual Monarchy that 
 none of the factors upon which its existence has hitherto 
 rested could be relied upon to support him in such a policy. 
 
WHAT IS AT' STAKE IN THE WAR (1915) ^ 
 
 Since August 1914 much has been written about " the war 
 which is to end war," and even those who are too strongly 
 imbued with the reality of things to believe in so sudden 
 and radical a change in human nature, earnestly hope that 
 when once the hurricane which is still devastating Europe 
 has spent itself, it will at least be followed by a long period 
 of calm and recuperation. The Napoleonic Wars ushered 
 in a generation of peace, and it is safe to assert that the 
 present war before it is over will have crowded as much 
 carnage, destruction, and human misery into a relatively 
 brief period as the twenty years of upheaval to which 
 the French Kevolution gave birth. The millions who 
 return from the field will have no desire to renew their 
 experience of modern armaments or to extend the study of 
 cultured savagery. They are likely to hold to strict account 
 those responsible for their sufferings, to insist that the 
 struggle shall not have been in vain, and that the settlement 
 shall give some concrete expression to their ideals. 
 
 Never in history will the statesmen, in whose hands the 
 control of Foreign Policy lies, have been faced by so great 
 a responsibihty as in those months of negotiation which 
 must inevitably separate the conclusion of hostilities and 
 the final establishment of peace. It is abeady obvious 
 
 ^ Papers for War Time, Third Series. No. 35 (MiHord, 1916). 
 
 60 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 61 
 
 that no single Power will obtain the maximmn of its desires 
 and that disappointment is in store for all extremists. But 
 this need not cause excessive regret ; indeed it may even 
 be regarded as indispensable to the attainment of that 
 juste milieu which will assure safety and satisfaction to the 
 victors without kindling in the vanquished that intolerable 
 sense of wrong which goads men to fresh violence. 
 
 The new Europe must be built on deep and broad 
 foundations — ^but on Hues of atonement, not of vengeance. 
 We must make it possible for our enemies to emerge from 
 the mood of exaltation and arrogance into which their 
 rulers have plunged them and to join in the necessary 
 work of reconstruction. But this involves as an essential 
 preliminary the overthrow of those hidebound diplomatic 
 traditions which have so long been the bane of international 
 relations and which are above all responsible for the present 
 war. The Congress of Vienna (1815) remapped Europe in 
 accordance with the interests of her dynasties ; the Con- 
 gress of Berlin (1878) settled the Near East on a basis of 
 governmental interests, as conceived by the Great Powers. 
 The coming Congress of 1916 or 1917 must give preference 
 to the interests of the nations themselves. No fair-minded 
 student of modern history can resist the conclusion that it 
 was the neglect of ^national aspirations and of the economic 
 problems which are so inextricably bound up with them, 
 that has been directly responsible for most of the great wars 
 and revolutionary outbreaks of the past century, and above 
 all for the failures which attended more than one diplomatic 
 settlement. 
 
 Hence all who have the peace of Europe at heart are 
 bound to insist in season and out of season that the chan- 
 celleries of the Entente shall not be allowed, whether 
 by the corroding influence of the censorship or by the 
 
^ 7Sl:ral^uiKr3i5^_=: 
 
 .,•; 
 
 o Bremen 
 HANOVER ^•~ 
 ,^. .— . Hanover ( <^'. ^ 
 
 ' \°2>"^3ru°k Maerdp'burff^p 
 °Munster-^ /-'* Aj^ 
 
 ,WESTPHALIA;G6ttinVen^ 
 
 
 BERLIN 
 o 
 
 WARSAW 
 ,N D 
 
 Cracow 
 
 ^Neustaclt 
 
 1 REFERENCE 
 territory lost | — 
 61/ Germany 
 ned 
 
 " >r; Grazoi^.l HUNGARY ierj-itonj gained pT-| 
 • ^z^l oy Germany I > . ) 
 
 English Miles T T A T 
 
 so 
 
 100 
 
 Merino ''^^-^t"'"'' ^'^»?^"J^ii?^ 
 
 approximate new 
 
 frontiers 
 inter-federal bounderies m-, 
 pre-war frontiers »•••• 
 
 GEORGE PHILIP A. SON, LTD. 
 
 THE GEKMAN FEDERAL RErUBLIC. 
 
 (A Forecast of Future Development.) 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAK 63 
 
 momentary exigencies of the military situation, to betray 
 that principle of Nationality to which they stand irrevocably 
 committed. It was a true instinct which nailed the colours 
 of nationality to the mast ; but rust and rough usage are 
 already loosening the hold of the nails. Those who control 
 our foreign poHcy are thoroughly honest and well-meaning : 
 but unless they receive firm backing from a keen and well- 
 informed public opinion, they run grave risk of succumbing 
 to the forces of reaction which are so steadily being brought 
 to bear upon them from the most unexpected quarters both 
 at home and abroad. Unless such a body of opinion 
 can be created — and it cannot as yet be said to exist — it 
 is utterly futile to indulge in vague invective against 
 *' secret diplomacy." All sensible democrats are in favour 
 of democratic control of Foreign Pohcy, but the foremost 
 obstacle to that control has been not so much the existence 
 of an aristocratic caste or its alleged aversion to intruders 
 from another class, as the boundless and dispiriting indiffer- 
 ence of the masses in this country to the problems which 
 inevitably give to that policy its direction. As an able 
 critic has recently remarked, " there can be no revolutionary 
 change in foreign poHtics until the Peoples have learnt 
 more." People who neither know nor care about the dif- 
 ference between Sofia and Bucarest, between Poles and 
 Czechs, between Trieste and Valona, between Tangier and 
 TripoH, are obviously incapable of forming any just 
 views upon the future of the Balkans, upon Russo-German 
 rivalry, or upon British naval poHcy in the Mediterranean. 
 The war has revealed the abyss of ignorance beside which 
 the nation had so contentedly reposed for years, and we 
 are now faced by a unique opportunity for liiaking good the 
 omissions of the past. But in spite of many gallant efforts 
 we are still some way from that concentration of expert 
 
64 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 opinion and practical experience wMch is the only sound 
 basis for a constructive, as opposed to a merely negative, 
 policy. 
 
 What, then, is our poHcy to-day ? Its main principles 
 were brilliantly summed up by the Prime Mnister in his 
 memorable speech of September 19. They were, he said, 
 "firstly, to vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations 
 and what is properly called the public law of Europe ; 
 secondly, to assert and to enforce the independence of free 
 states, relatively smaU and weak, against the encroachments 
 and violence of the strong ; and thirdly, to withstand, as we 
 believe in the best interests not only of our own Empire, 
 but of civihsation at large, the arrogant claim of a single 
 Power to dominate the development of the destinies of 
 Europe." Yet clear and admirable as this summary is, it 
 is meaningless unless we attempt to translate its phrases 
 into the hard facts of the political world. 
 
 One fact has already become abundantly clear since 
 those words were uttered — ^that whereas the victory of the 
 Central Powers means an absolute German hegemony over 
 enemies and alHes ahke, the victory of the Entente will be 
 the joint work of an ever-expanding group of Powers. 
 While Germany, if she wins^ will justly regard herself as 
 having saved Austria-Hungary from destruction, not one 
 of her rivals, in the event of the triumph of the Entente, 
 wiU be able to claim a monopoly of the credit. Each wiU 
 have contributed to the common cause, but in each case 
 that contribution will have been an indispensable part of 
 the total effort. Here at least it is possible to find some 
 consolation. The victory of William II. would be a victory 
 for the spirit which inspired Louis XIV. or the first Napoleon, 
 a reversion to the vanishing era of insolent conquest and 
 plunder. The victory of the Allies will be a victory for 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 65 
 
 Europe and the European system. What might have been 
 a mere war for French or British or Russian Imperiahsm 
 has thus become a conflict in which all good " Europeans," 
 to say nothing of Americans, are ranged against a single 
 renegade foe. 
 
 The creed of the Allies is a creed of diversity, that of 
 the Germans is a creed of uniformity. The openly avowed 
 aim of their poHtical and academic thinkers is the imposi- 
 tion of a single form of " culture " — ^the German — upon a 
 world which has bUndly failed to appreciate its merits. 
 Hence their victory would mean the subjection of Europe 
 to a new doctrine of InfalhbiUty as demoralising for its 
 inventor as it would be intolerable for its victims. The 
 victory of the AlUes, on the other hand, will be the joint 
 work of widely difierent ideals and traditions, and will 
 vindicate the right of every people to preserve and develop 
 its own national individuahty. As a writer in the Nation 
 has well said, the AUied nations oppose to Germany's 
 senseless worship of the " Will-to-Power " an invincible 
 faith in the " Right-to-Live " of small and great nations 
 alike. 
 
 Let us turn from theory to practice, and consider briefly 
 what the victory of the AlUes involves in the language of 
 hard pohtical facts. We are fighting three enemies of 
 widely differing character, quality, and strength — Germany, 
 Austria-Himgary, and Turkey. In any consideration of 
 our policy towards them it is advisable to treat them in 
 the inverse order to their importance, for reasons which 
 will soon become obvious. In peace time all save the 
 extremists favoured paUiatives. To-day only the most 
 drastic measures will meet the case. Hence the victory of 
 the Allies means the dismemberment of Turkey and Austria- 
 Hungary — first because only thus can we hope to isolate 
 
 F 
 
66 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and bring Germany to her knees, and secondly because 
 only on their ruins can we erect the new Europe of our 
 dreams. Of these two organisms, the one is rotten to the 
 core, the other has unhappily shown itself incapable of 
 internal regeneration, and both have made themselves 
 the voluntary tools of a stronger and more unscrupulous 
 Power. 
 
 In Turkey to-day the issue is clear. The art of govern- 
 ment has always been a sealed book to the Turk, and for 
 generations past there has been a bUght upon everything 
 that he has touched. As we have endeavoured to show in 
 the previous chapter, the Turk has never understood any 
 principle save that of physical force : by the sword he 
 built up his empire, and by the sword he is losing it. When 
 the discord of his former vassals, aggravated by the in- 
 trigues of the Great Powers, enabled him two years ago to 
 recover the last wreck of his European dominions, he be- 
 came a mere tool of the state which had always shown a 
 complete and consistent disregard for the fate and interests 
 of the Balkan Christians. " The Turkish Empire," said 
 Mr. Asquith, " has committed suicide and dug with its own 
 hand its grave," and all British parties are to-day united 
 in accepting the Gladstonian pohcy of driving the Turks 
 " bag and baggage " out of Europe. The delicate problem 
 of Constantinople and the Straits, so long evaded and post- 
 poned, must at last be definitely solved ; and we are faced 
 by the alternative of bolstering up for a fresh period the 
 unstable and iniquitous rule of the Sultan, or freely offer- 
 ing the city to Russia, thus satisfying the yearning of 
 centuries for St. Sofia and for the open sea-. The creation 
 of a small international state, composed of the countries 
 bordering upon the Sea of Marmora, is an attractive idea, 
 so long as it is merely considered theoretically ; any attempt 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 67 
 
 to put it into practice would conjure up the very gravest 
 difficulties and dangers. The Cross of St. Andrew is the 
 only possible substitute for the Crescent of Islam, and it 
 can hardly be doubted that Constantinople will profit as 
 fully and as rapidly by the change as did Batum or Baku a 
 few decades ago.^ To Russia the question is one of senti- 
 ment, of strategy, and of economics, and these three needs 
 once satisfied, the Western Powers in their turn would be 
 entitled to demand that Constantinople shall remain a 
 free port for the commerce of all nations, and that special 
 guarantees of free access to the Mediterranean shall be 
 offered to Roumania, to whom the question of the Straits 
 is a matter of life and death, and who has all the more claim 
 to be considered in view of her peculiar position as the guard- 
 ian of the Danubian delta and that great river's trade with 
 Central Europe. Bulgaria already has a direct access to 
 the Aegean, which may perhaps be extended as the result of 
 a friendly agreement with her neighbours ; but Roumania 
 wiU always remain dependent upon the Bosphorus, and 
 no solution of the Eastern Question which ignores her 
 interests and claims can be either just or permanent. 
 
 The problem presented by Austria-Hungary is infinitely 
 more complicated. With its twelve principal races and ten 
 chief languages, with its seven religions and twenty-three 
 legislative bodies, it provides at every turn pitfalls for the 
 
 ^ This passage I leave as I wrote it four years ago. To-day it is 
 obviously impossible to assign Constantinople to Russia ; and yet 
 the day may be nearer at hand than is generally recognised, when 
 such a solution will once more become practical poUtics, and when a 
 free Russia, no longer imperiaUstic and once more Christian, will 
 assume the guardianship of the Straits. In any case no serious 
 proposal has as yet been put forward as an alternative Indeed, the 
 Peace Conference's failure to grapple with the Turkish problem 
 during the six months following the Turkish armistice is likely to 
 form one of the main counts in a very grave indictment. 
 
68 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 unwary or superficial student : and the bare idea of its 
 collapse has filled with terror every advocate of the status 
 quo. Small wonder that Palacky's famous phrase, " If 
 there were no Austria, it would be necessary to create one," 
 should have been re-echoed as a parrot cry for the last 
 sixty years. A true instinct made even the most ignorant 
 feel that the continued existence of the Habsburg Mon- 
 archy was essential if a European cataclysm was to be 
 avoided. And yet M. Sorel was unquestionably right when 
 he declared that " on the day when the Eastern Question 
 appears to have been solved, Europe will inevitably be 
 confronted by the Austrian Question." The troubles 
 which precipitated the great struggle were due to the inter- 
 action of Balkan and Austrian racial problems — the jetsam 
 of the receding Turkish tide. During the long reign of 
 Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary has made marked pro- 
 gress in many directions — poHtically as well as materially ; 
 but the attitude of her governing classes has always been a 
 fatal drag upon the wheel. Her statesmen, far from realis- 
 ing that so conglomerate a state could not rest upon a 
 negative basis, openly proclaimed and acted upon a policy 
 of '* jogging along " (the famous " Fortwursteln " of Count 
 Taaffe), of half measures alike in internal and in external 
 affairs. The House of Habsburg, with all its faults and 
 shortcomings, has earned the gratitude of Europe as the 
 champion, for three centuries, of Christendom against the 
 Turks. But with the disappearance of all danger from that 
 quarter a fresh policy was needed, in order to weld into a 
 single whole the medley of peoples whom the dynasty had 
 gradually gathered round it. The necessity for a strong 
 lead in this direction became more and more urgent with 
 every decade, as national feeling gathered force ; and yet 
 Francis Joseph has consistently refrained from giving such 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 69 
 
 a lead. At last, when the approaching dissolution of the 
 Dual Monarchy was already the theme alike of superficial 
 observers outside and acute thinkers within, there appeared 
 in the person of the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand a 
 man who seemed to possess the energy, knowledge, and gifts 
 of leadership without which so herculean a task as the re- 
 generation and reconstruction of the state would have been 
 foredoomed to failure. His shortcomings were obvious, but 
 his honesty of purpose and his belief in the mission of his 
 house could not be gainsaid. It is the fashion to regard his 
 uncle as the victim of some elemental Oedipodean tragedy ; 
 ' but surely the fate of the nephew is infinitely more tragic. 
 At the moment when he awaited with growing impatience 
 the supreme moment of opportunity, confident that he 
 would rally roimd him in his effort all the best brains of the 
 Monarchy — at that moment he was struck down by the 
 hand of an assassin, and his place was filled by a thought- 
 less and inexperienced youth better versed in fight opera 
 than in even the simplest problems of the poHtical world. 
 
 His death removed the one man capable of restoring 
 order to an internal situation which — for lack of any posi- 
 tive action — ^was rapidly becoming desperate. It removed, 
 too, the chief restraining influence in the councils of the 
 Monarchy and left the war parties supreme in Central 
 Europe. The reactionaries of Berlin and the reactionaries 
 of Budapest joined hands over the inanimate body of 
 Austria. German and Magyar are inspired by a common 
 resolve to maintain their domination over the Slav, to pre- 
 vent the rising democracies of Western Slavdom from 
 coming to their own. To-day we see Germany mercilessly 
 draining the resources of Austria-Hungary in a quarrel 
 which is altogether hateful to a majority among the latter 's 
 population ; we see the exploitation of close upon thirty 
 
70 EUROPE m THE MELTING-POT 
 
 million people by their traditional enemies. If the menace 
 of German military hegemony is to be removed from Europe, 
 the first and most obvious task of the AlHes must be the 
 emancipation of the Slav and Latin races of Austria- 
 Hungary, the vindication of their right to a free national 
 development. 
 
 Before the war much was heard of the alleged attempt 
 to " ring round " Germany by a superior combination of 
 hostile Powers. The events of the last nine months have 
 effectually exploded the theory of the Entente's menace. 
 Germany has not only proved herself a match for her three 
 great rivals, despite the secession of one member of her own 
 group, but has even succeeded in galvanising her remaining 
 ally into fresh life. But this is the last spasmodic effort of 
 a system which belongs to the age of feudalism rather than 
 to modern times. The great war is a hideous proof that 
 the policy of racial dominance and forcible assimilation is 
 morally bankrupt, but through its long-drawn-out horrors 
 we believe that more than one dream of national unity and 
 liberation will be reahsed, and that those racial minorities 
 whose separate existence reasons of geography and eco- 
 nomics render impossible, will attain guarantees of full 
 linguistic and cultural Uberty. 
 
 The moment is still far distant when we can attempt to 
 define the new frontiers of Europe ; but in view of the 
 complicated issues involved it is already necessary to 
 weigh very carefully the various alternatives. The dis- 
 solution of Austria-Hunga-ry — an event which is only con- 
 ceivable if Germany should be completely defeated — would 
 involve a complete re-grouping of Central and South-eastern 
 Europe. The chief features of the new situation would be 
 (1) the union of Polish GaHcia with the new Poland ; (2) 
 of Ruthene Galicia with the Russian -Ukraine ; (3) of the 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 71 
 
 Trentino, Trieste and Western Istria with the ELingdom of 
 Italy ; (4) the creation* of an independent Bohemia — in- 
 cluding not merely the Czechs, but their Slovak kinsmen in 
 Northern Hungary ; (5) of a Greater Roumania — ^including 
 the Roumanian populations of Hungary and the Bukovina ; 
 (6) of a new Southern Slav state, composed of the present 
 Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, the ancient but 
 dormant Triune Eangdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, 
 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Istria and perhaps the 
 Slovene districts of Austria, and finally (7) of an independ- 
 ent Hungary, a national state shorn of the races whom 
 she has so long and so grossly misgoverned, and herself set 
 free for a new era of democratic development. In some 
 cases it may prove difficult to reconcile the rival claims of 
 ethnography and strategic necessity, but by accepting 
 nationality as the guiding principle of any settlement, and 
 insisting that no race shall be handed over to an alien rule 
 without being previously consulted, a great step will have 
 been made towards placing Europe upon a new and surer 
 foundation. 
 
 But even with the establishment of free and vigorous 
 national states upon the ruins of the old order, there must 
 inevitably remain the difficult problem of racial minorities, 
 whose interests are of secondary but none the less of vital 
 importance. And just as every efiort must be made to 
 ensure the survival of the smaller nations, as the surest 
 bulwarks of true culture and tolerance, as the guardians of 
 racial individuahty and diversity of type, so also they in 
 their turn must be induced to offer the fullest poUtical and 
 intellectual liberty to all racial minorities within their 
 boundaries. A guarantee of linguistic rights in schools, 
 churches, local bodies, and cultural institutions must be a 
 sine qua non in the settlement of every problem. Thus the 
 
72 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Germans of Bohemia and Southern Hungary must enjoy 
 the same privileges as the Magyars in the new Eoumania, 
 the Slovenes in Italy, and the tiny group of Italians in the 
 new Jugoslavia. Those who see their monopoly threatened 
 by such an arrangement will describe it as Utopian, but it 
 is certainly attainable on a basis of careful study and good 
 intentions. 
 
 If Nationality is to be the dominant factor in the future 
 settlement of Europe, two other vital factors — economics 
 and rehgion — must on no account be neglected, unless we 
 are to court disaster. The geographical configuration of 
 the Continent and the distribution of the various races 
 render some international arrangement of a commercial 
 nature an almost essential postulate of future peace. The 
 free navigation of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus is in 
 a special category of its own, and lies in the interests of 
 every nation in Europe without exception. If Italy should 
 succeed in establishing her claim to Trieste, she must, alike 
 in her own interests and in those of European peace, con- 
 vert the city into a free port for all commerce. Its inclu- 
 sion in the Italian tariff system would rapidly reduce a 
 flourishing port to ruin and create an intolerable situation 
 .for its entire hinterland, besides acting as a direct chal- 
 lenge to Germany to upset the settlement at the earheSt 
 possible date ; whereas its proclamation as a free port 
 would give full scope to every legitimate aspiration of Ger- 
 man commerce in the eastern Mediterranean. In the same 
 way, if Fiume should become the port of the new Serbo- 
 Croat state, some satisfactory arrangement must be made 
 for the free access of Hungarian and Bohemian commerce 
 to the sea. From such an arrangement each of the three 
 states would derive great benefits, and its triangular 
 nature would be its most effective guarantee. A similar 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAK 73 
 
 experiment has already been successfully tried at the 
 harbour of Salonica, where Serbia possesses a special zone 
 of her own, exempt from Greek customs dues. It is to be 
 hoped that Greece will voluntarily cede Kavala in return 
 for valuable territorial expansion elsewhere ; but faihng 
 that, a free port and special tarifi concessions for the future 
 Struma valley railway ought to be assured to Bulgaria. 
 
 Finally, in the north of Europe similar adjustments 
 would be necessary. If, as all but a few reactionaries 
 hope and believe, this war should bring at least a partial 
 atonement for that greatest of political crimes, the parti- 
 tion of Poland, then the river system of the Vistula will 
 resume its old importance as a geographical unit, and the 
 new Poland must inevitably obtain its outlet to the sea. 
 The only possible way of ending the secular feud of Pole 
 and German is to reunite the broken fragments of the 
 Polish race and to restore the port of Danzig to its natural 
 . position as a free port. Here is obviously a point at which 
 wise and far-sighted commercial provisions can do much to 
 modify acute racial antagonisms. 
 
 There is indeed much to be said for some special inter- 
 national arrangement, on the hnes of the Danube Com- 
 mission, for reguTating the commerce of all the riparian 
 states with each other and with the outer world. In such 
 cases as the Seine, the Po, or the Volga only a single state 
 is concerned, and the problem must be regarded as one of 
 internal pohcy. But Germany has as great an interest as 
 Holland in the mouth of the Ehine, Belgium is no less 
 interested than Holland in the mouth of the Scheldt ; on 
 the Elbe and the Moldau depends much of Bohemia's pros- 
 perity ; the Danube is likely to assume for Hungary an 
 even greater importance in the future than in the past ; 
 while the Vistula supplies the key to the Pohsh problem. 
 
74 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 There remains the rehgious problem, and nothing is 
 more remarkable (in a war which has pitted Protestant 
 against Protestant and CathoUc against CathoHc and thus 
 appears to many scoffers as the bankruptcy of the Christian 
 ideal) than the silence which our public opinion has hitherto 
 preserved on one of its most vital aspects. In the very 
 forefront of the vast problems raised by this war is the 
 emancipation and regeneration of the democratic and pro- 
 gressive Slav nations of Central Europe. Of these, five 
 out of seven — ^the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, and 
 Slovenes — are overwhelmingly Catholic ; the sixth, the 
 Ruthenes, so far as they inhabit Austria-Hungary, belong 
 to the Uniate Church ; while only the seventh, the Serbs, 
 are Orthodox, and on them reUgion sits lightly, as on all 
 Balkan peoples. This bald statement of fact should suffice 
 to show the utter hopelessness of any attempt to solve these 
 Slav problems on an Orthodox basis. The baneful influ- 
 ence of a tiny clique of reactionaries in Petrograd is being 
 exercised in that direction ; but the overwhelming mass 
 of the Russian people, while chnging firmly to the Orthodox 
 faith as a living expression of their innermost soul, will 
 fiercely resent and repudiate any attempt to sow discord 
 between Cathohc and Orthodox. The Panslav ideal can 
 only be attained by the enforcement of a religious truce ; 
 those who would like to identify Panslavism with Ortho- 
 doxy are in reahty Panmuscovites, and must inevitably 
 rely upon a policy of Russification. Such ideas are a re- 
 version to the evil tendencies of the Middle Ages, to the 
 very traditions by which German and Magyar policy is 
 inspired, and will fail to arouse even the faintest echo 
 among the Western and Southern Slavs, who are all deeply 
 imbued with Western thought and culture. 
 
 A classic example of the new spirit is provided by the 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 75 
 
 fraternal example of the Croats and Slovenes, whose fervent 
 Catholicism does not hinder them from ardently desiring 
 union with their Orthodox Serb brethren, and whose 
 tolerant attitude is more than reciprocated by the Serbian 
 Government and pubHc opinion in Serbia. The Concordat 
 arranged in 1914 between Serbia and the Vatican is almost 
 unprecedented in modern ecclesiastical history for its far- 
 reaching and liberal concessions. It is to be hoped that 
 this statesmanlike act will form a precedent for Russia's 
 attitude to all her Slavonic kinsmen under foreign ixde, 
 and that when the Russian armies again enter Lemberg, 
 such deplorable incidents as the persecution of Monsignor 
 Szeptycki, " the Ruthene Strossmayer," will not be re- 
 peated. That Catholics and Orthodox can hve amicably 
 side by side without any injury to the national cause is 
 shown by the almost ideal relations which subsist between 
 the Roumanian Uniate and Orthodox Churches in Tran- 
 sylvania. The enthusiasm of many million Catholic Slavs 
 in Bohemia, Hungary, and along the Adriatic coast-line, 
 for Russia as the great Slav brother is an asset which a few 
 fanatics must not be allowed to barter rashly away. Neither 
 the Southern Slav nor the Bohemian nor the Polish nor 
 the Gahcian questions can be solved on any basis save that 
 of a Tregua Dei between CathoHcism and Orthodoxy ; and 
 as the solution of all four problems is an essential prelimin- 
 ary to a durable European settlement, it lies quite as much 
 in the interests of the Western Powers as of Russia herself, 
 to insist upon this point of view. 
 
 In order, then, to bring the principle of nationality to 
 its own in Europe, it will be necessary to destroy Turkey 
 and to dismember Austria-Hungary. But to attempt to 
 apply similar methods to Germany would be to deny, not to 
 enforce, that same principle. The regeneration of Germany 
 
76 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 can only come from within ; it can never be imposed from 
 without. And that regeneration must be the aim of Europe, 
 if the future peace is not to be one long nightmare of 
 rival armaments tempered by epidemics of bankruptcy. 
 For the moment Germany is content with the Hohenzollern 
 conception of kingship and of the state ; and any attempt 
 on our part at interference with the internal arrangements 
 of the Empire could only strengthen its hold upon the people. 
 Underlying the whole struggle is a fundamental difference 
 of mentality and outlook, and herein lies the true tragedy 
 and the crowning danger of the situation. Only by ex- 
 ploding the doctrine of Materialism and Brute Force as the 
 gospel of humanity can we hope to produce in Germany a re- 
 version to that cult of ideaUsm in which her people formerly 
 led the world. 
 
 Attempts are being made in certain quarters to imitate 
 the ridiculous outbursts of hate by which a German poet- 
 aster has advertised his name and which the lineal heir of 
 the Stuarts, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, has stooped to 
 endorse. The exposure of authentic " atrocities " is a 
 thankless but necessary task ; but those who found anti- 
 German societies or inveigh against the inclusion of German 
 Rhodes scholars on the roll of honour of an Oxford college, 
 are not merely betraying a lack of perspective and wasting 
 energy which might be well employed upon definite war 
 objects : they are also guilty of a crude tactical error, for 
 their abuse only tends to strengthen the reactionary party 
 in Germany. It is a notorious fact that the brutalities 
 committed by the German authorities in Belgium are not 
 merely the expression of a militarism run wild, but also 
 part of a dehberate policy which aims at stiffing any tend- 
 encies on the part of the progressive elements in Germany 
 to favour reconciliation with the Western Powers. It is 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 77 
 
 equally notorious that the German military authorities 
 were seriously alarmed at the friendly feeling displayed by 
 the troops on many sections of the front towards their 
 enemy in the opposing trenches, and that drastic steps 
 were taken during the winter to stifle the growth of such a 
 feeling. To those who are aware of the changed attitude 
 of our own soldiers during the past six months — from 
 chivalrous and tolerant regard for a gallant foe to burning 
 indignation at methods of foul play — further comment is 
 superfluous. But though no one with a spark of humanity 
 will be surprised at this result, it is well to realise that it 
 was deliberately desired by the German authorities, and to 
 decline as far as possible to play their game in other fields. 
 The Junker party is playing for a rapprochement with the 
 Russian reactionaries, and the German Radicals, who are 
 to-day paying for their impotence and lack of policy in the 
 past, find themselves reduced to silence by the tactless, 
 though perfectly natural, exaggerations of a few fire-eaters 
 in the West. They do not, it is true, represent a very 
 serious force in German politics ; and indeed the history 
 of the last seventy years in Germany has been the history 
 of the discomfiture of popular government by the exponents 
 of military despotism. And yet a time may be at hand when 
 they will no longer be a negUgible quantity. Defeat may 
 secure for German democracy what victory could never 
 bring. On the very eve of war one of the most distinguished 
 of Prussian historians, Professor Hans Delbriick, freely 
 admitted in a moment of candour that the German Officers' 
 Corps would never tolerate the introduction of a parlia- 
 mentary regime in Germany, save after a new Sedan in 
 which Germany was not the victor but the vanquished.^ 
 Lack of humour and ignorance of psychology lie at the 
 1 " Regierung und Volkswille," p. 136. 
 
78 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 root of the German official attitude. Their attempts 
 at " f rightfulness " are based on a characteristically low 
 reading of human nature, on the tacit assumption that 
 material considerations must rule the world. A classic 
 instance of this lack of comprehension was supplied at an 
 early stage in the war, when the German press treated the 
 special prayers prescribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 as a sign of fear and panic. These critics made the same 
 mistake as an English king six centuries ago, who saw the 
 Scottish army kneeling in serried ranks upon the field of 
 Bannockburn, and joyfully hailed their approaching sur- 
 render. To William II. we can surely repeat the words of 
 Edward's more discerning general: " They ^ kneel, Sire, 
 but not to you ! " 
 
 Since the war began, many words have lost their mean- 
 ing, values are utterly changed. The nation has on the 
 whole shown a truer perception of this fact than we perhaps 
 had any right to expect, and has incidentally proved that 
 it is by no means so lacking in imagination as its critics 
 were fond of asserting. It is true that a few individuals 
 are still incapable of flinging aside the old catchwords and 
 still cling to the theory when the practice has already been 
 abandoned ; but the number of those who hailed the col- 
 lapse of the party system with unabashed delight is un- 
 questionably far greater than the few survivors from that 
 vanished world of " pre-war " ideas and theories would 
 care to admit. The classic example of the overwhelming 
 transformation which ten months of war have wrought, is 
 the new attitude of the nation at large towards the army. 
 If many of those who opposed Lord Roberts's propaganda in 
 the years that preceded the war have no hesitation in ad- 
 mitting their error to-day, we are at the same time entitled 
 to protest with equal emphasis against those who wish to 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 79 
 
 force unalloyed "conscription" upon a nation of "slackers" 
 and against those who regard the slightest departure from 
 the voluntary system as a crime against freedom and 
 humanity. The one party tends to minimise what has been 
 achieved, the other to minimise the vast task which still 
 lies before us. Both fail to realise that such claptrap phrases 
 as " conscription " and " compulsion " are wholly inade- 
 quate as the interpretation of our present need. The true 
 traitors to our national cause are those who, for whatever 
 motives, read into the noble phrase of " National Service " 
 a meaning which is utterly alien to it. National Service 
 can have no limitation. In times of crisis every citizen 
 must serve his country, whatever may be his age or sex 
 or profession ; and it is the duty of the State to apportion 
 to each individual his or her own special task, whether 
 it be military or civil. But at all costs we have the right 
 to demand that the idea of National Service shall never be 
 restricted in a merely military sense, but shall remain as 
 an irresistible claim upon the whole nation. In the words 
 used to me only a week ago by a prominent Sociahst 
 deputy, " Every man who is not doing something for the 
 State to-day, is fighting for the enemy ! " 
 
 Many of us, whom our work has kept at home, are 
 frankly envious of the men at the front and feel that our 
 best efforts in other causes are contemptible in comparison 
 with the sacrifice they have made with so gay a heart and 
 with scarcely a word of false sentiment or parade. We 
 gladly face the fact that after the war it is the miUions who 
 return from active service who will be the controlling force 
 in British politics. We know that they will introduce a 
 steadying influence, an element of reahty, which was too 
 often lacking in the internal disputes of the nation, and that 
 their voluntary acceptance of the hardships* of war will 
 
80 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 have given them a moral force which compulsion could 
 never have suppHed. But there can be no hard-and-fast 
 rules for supreme moments like the present. After ten 
 months of war we are still at the beginning of our task, and 
 we must be prepared to discard many more of our comfort- 
 able habits and traditional prejudices before the goal can 
 be reached. To the pessimists who accuse the nation of 
 sloth and indifference we can proudly point out that never 
 in history has there been a voluntary acceptance of military 
 duties on so large and so successful a scale ; while the opti- 
 mists who accept this undoubted fact as a proof that further 
 innovations are not needed, may be reminded with equal 
 truth that the efforts put forth by this country are still 
 relatively far less than those of our little Serbian ally, and 
 that complete victory, whether on the field of battle or in 
 the intellectual sphere, only comes to those who are pre- 
 pared to pay the full price of sustained and concentrated 
 effort. 
 
 The goal of this effort is the destruction of the German 
 military machine. It is a task of enormous difficulty, but 
 it can be performed, and we have no choice but to perform 
 it. But we have not got to crush the German people, 
 because that is at once impossible and undesirable. Im- 
 possible, because a compact and highly organised nation 
 of 75,000,000 souls can never be crushed or annihilated, and 
 any such attempt must inevitably recoil upon its author. 
 Undesirable, because, despite the wild and inaccurate state- 
 ments of our Jingo press, the German people represents, 
 and always will represent, one of the most valuable elements 
 in the intellectual and moral life of Europe. Its very 
 virtues have contributed to its exploitation by a relent- 
 less and unscrupulous machine. 
 
 Earlier in the war it was almost a commonplace that 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 81 
 
 we were j&ghting the military caste, but not the people ; 
 but this argument was abandoned when at last it became 
 clear that the German nation is genuinely behind its leaders. 
 And yet it is necessary to uphold the distinction between 
 the governing class and the nation as a whole, for on this 
 distinction alone does any hope for a better future rest. 
 With the existing regime in Prussia there can be no per- 
 manent peace ; but unless some modus vivendi can be found 
 with the German people, Europe will inevitably be con- 
 demned to a fresh period of agony and fratricidal strife. 
 
 The blasphemous arrogance with which the Supreme 
 War Lord has claimed the Deity as a kind of HohenzoUern 
 lackey is thoroughly in keeping with his attitude for many 
 years past. At the same time those who have studied the 
 psychology and behaviour of the mihtary caste in Ger- 
 many for the last two decades ought not to have been (and 
 generally have not been) surprised at the manner in which 
 its ofiS.cial " Kriegsbrauch " has been translated into prac- 
 tice in the present war Neither the pseudo-Christian 
 Caesarism of William II. nor the brutal theories of the 
 General Staff are typical of the German national character, 
 though the crimes and errors of both are inevitably visited 
 upon the head of the nation as a whole. Hence to treat 
 Germany as a pariah is as short-sighted as it is futile. Our 
 outspoken condemnation of the infamies of Louvain and 
 Dinant, of illegal methods of warfare on sea and land, were 
 salutary and necessary ; and if f ortime favours our arms, we 
 shall most assuredly hold the highly placed criminals to 
 strict account. But Germany herself will recover her 
 senses, as surely as France after the orgies of the Reign of 
 Terror ; and we, who have long since ceased to regard our 
 closest ally with the eyes of Burke or Pitt, mdst frame our 
 policy to meet the requirements of the future as well as of 
 
 G 
 
82 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the present. While firmly resolving never again to be 
 caught napping by an unscrupulous diplomacy, and in- 
 sisting on practical steps to render fresh aggression impos- 
 sible, we must at the same time avoid any action such as 
 might render more difficult Germany's recovery from the 
 madness which has overpowered her. I have no desire to 
 echo the futile cry of a handful of sentimentalists that 
 " Germany must not be humiliated." Defeat is always 
 humiliating, even after a fair fight ! and those who do not 
 desire Germany's complete defeat are traitors to the cause 
 of Britain and of civilisation. We must impose our terms, 
 if we can, but this can be done without outraging the soul 
 of a great nation. In the words of M. Paul Sabatier — most 
 assuredly one of the spiritual guides of the new Europe — 
 " Victory on the battlefield will not be complete and de- 
 finite unless we crown it, not by acts of revenge against the 
 countless misdeeds of the Germans, but by a sort of mis- 
 sionary effort. Civilisation would be lost,, if in order to 
 take vengeance on the Germans, we were to adopt the senti- 
 ments of national pride and ferocious hatred which have 
 created German mihtarism and made of Prussia a spiritual 
 danger." The spirit which aims at dismembering the 
 greatest national State in Europe must be sternly discour- 
 aged, not merely because it reveals an incapacity to dis- 
 tinguish between the possible and the impossible, but above 
 all because any such attempt would be a monstrous nega- 
 tion of the very principles of which we have made so loud 
 a profession. 
 
 The dominant factor, then, upon which not merely 
 Anglo-German relations but the whole future of civilisa- 
 tion depends, is simply this : What Will the 75,000,000 of 
 Germans thirflc after the war ? What will be their attitude 
 to the world around them ? Can they be brought to 
 
GEORGE PHILIPS SON, LTO. 
 
 THE NEW POLAND 
 
4 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 lelieve, and above all to impose the belief upon their rulers, 
 hat there is a higher appeal than to Brute Force ? Or are 
 hey so sunk in materialism, so tamed by long years of 
 •ver-discipline, as to be incapable of reahsing the triumph- 
 ant power of an idea ? There was a time when no people 
 in earth understood this so well as the German : time 
 Jone can show whether they will revert to the ideaUsm of 
 ^ great past, or whether the system of blood and iron which 
 LOW holds them as in a vice, will prove too strong for the 
 L wakening spirit of self-criticism. This is the great riddle 
 )f the future, to which no man can pretend to supply a 
 -rustworthy answer. It will be the duty of the statesmen 
 )f the Entente to avoid so far as possible a policy which 
 vould either silence the advocates of conciliation or drive 
 hem into the arms of the reactionaries. 
 
 Some weU-meaning people to whom the domain of 
 ^'oreign Policy remains a sealed book despite all their 
 (fforts to map it out, would have us believe that the evacu- 
 Ltion of Belgium and Northern France by the Germans 
 vould provide a tolerable basis for peace negotiations. 
 ^ancta Simplicitas I we may well exclaim. On the one 
 land the Prussian Government will never consent to 
 iuch terms until its financial (if not its military) situation 
 s desperate, though it is already using such informal 
 proposals as a convenient manoeuvre to impress neutral 
 jountries with its moderation. But on the other hand — 
 md this is infinitely more important — public opinion must 
 ;rasp the fact that our aim in this war is not merely the 
 •estoration of unhappy Belgium to her former position. 
 That is one of our many aims, and it was one of the deter- 
 nining facts in our action last August. But it is only a 
 jmall detail in the great task that awaits us — and I use the 
 phrase advisedly without for one moment minimising all 
 
WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE WAR 85 
 
 that Belgium means for Europe and for us. Our task is 
 nothing less than the regeneration of Europe, the vindica- 
 tion of the twin principles of Nationality and Democracy, 
 the emancipation of subject races from ahen rule. Restore 
 Belgium, reunite Alsace-Lorraine to France, but ignore the 
 agony of Poland, the irresistible movement for Southern 
 Slav Unity, the new and hopeful dream of an Italian Italy, 
 the growing resolve of Bohemia, the aspirations of the 
 Roumanians, Slovaks, and Ruthenes, the impossible nature 
 of Turkish rule, the vital need for Balkan co-operation, the 
 overwhelming claims of Russia to an access to the Medi- 
 terranean, — and in so doing you are giving your vote for 
 the old Europe of reaction and materialism, and seUing 
 your birthright in the new and transfigured Europe of our 
 dreams. Half-measures are for times of peace ; to-day we 
 must buil,d on broad foundations, not waste our time upon 
 the scaffolding of a hou^e which has been condemned as 
 unsafe. But where is the master-builder ? That is our 
 greatest need to-day. The nation has already shown dur- 
 ing this war that it can respond to a clear call ; and in the 
 great problem of munitions at least one man has shown 
 himself ready to lead us. But in Foreign Policy the same 
 lead is urgently needed — no longer the silence of pessimism or 
 caution which has weighed upon our spirits during the past 
 six months, but the gaUant and incisive phrases with which 
 our statesmen roused our enthusiasm in the early stages of 
 the war. Britain must prove true to her mission as the 
 soul of the Entente — not as the exponent of some new- 
 fangled " English Culture," but as the champion of those 
 wider principles of mutual tolerance without which neither 
 a healthy national life nor healthy international relations 
 are possibly. 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 
 
 (1916)1 
 
 " What we all want is the certainty that individual Ministers 
 will be no more immune than individual generals from the con- 
 sequences of failure. At present there is no such certainty. 
 There is not even a reasonable probabihty that failure will mean 
 retirement." — Times, January 17, 1916. 
 
 " The one idea has been, and is, to keep us all in the dark about 
 our own business for fear we should be scared. It is Ministers 
 who are scared, not the people." — Mr. H. M. Hyndman, May 
 1915. 
 
 Have we a Foreign Policy to-day ? 
 
 Have we ever had a Foreign Policy since the death of 
 King Edward ? 
 
 Is there any prospect of its present controller evolving 
 a Foreign Policy in the near future ? 
 
 Such is the problem to the discussion of which the 
 present article is devoted. It has been written by one 
 who before the war was a Liberal, but whom the war has 
 forced to " scrap " one fond illusion or prejudice after 
 another, and who is prepared to " scrap " many more things 
 in his pursuit of an energetic and constructive Foreign 
 Policy, as an indispensable aid to military success. 
 
 ^ From The English Review, February 1916.. 
 
 86 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 87 
 
 King Edward succeeded to the throne during the course 
 of a foreign war, when the dangers involved in our much- 
 vaunted policy of ' Splendid Isolation " had become only 
 too apparent, and when this country, for a number of 
 reasons, enjoyed abroad an unpopularity differing only in 
 degree from that which the Germans have won for them- 
 selves in the present war. Above all, he was confronted 
 at every turn by his own nephew, Wilham II., as a perpetual 
 element of restlessness and uncertainty in European poKtics, 
 for ever reiterating his pacific intentions, yet no less 
 frequently parading the terrors of his mailed fist. 
 
 From the very first King Edward's aim was perfectly 
 clear and logical, and was pursued with all his unrivalled 
 diplomatic flair, personal tact, and knowledge of the in- 
 tricacies of Continental pohtics and of human nature in 
 general. This aim was the removal of the chief danger- 
 points in the European situation, and they were many. 
 Our long isolation had bred in us a spirit of arrogance and 
 a disinclination to study our neighbours, which culminated 
 in the regrettable but by no means " inevitable " incident 
 of Fashoda. The South African War taught us a much- 
 needed lesson — ^not to despise small nations — and revealed 
 to us the depths of our insularity and unpopularity, and 
 the dangers to which these two hard facts exposed us. 
 The explosion of Pro-Boerism on the Continent was like 
 a flash illuminating the abyss at our feet. 
 
 King Edward, unlike his Imperial nephew twelve years 
 later, took the warning to heart. But for him it may be 
 doubted whether either the Anglo-French Agreement or 
 the Anglo-Russian Convention would have been realised, 
 though it would be grossly unfair to under- estimate the 
 
88 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 share of Lord Lansdowne as Foreign Secretary in initiating 
 the former, and of Sir Charles (now Lord) Hardinge and 
 Sir Arthur Nicolson (now Lord Carnock) in negotiating the 
 latter. The pohcy to which these agreements provided a 
 soUd base has, of course, been represented, and indeed 
 decried, by his enemies as one of " Einkreisung " — the 
 encircUng or even isolation of Germany. It is an unjust 
 definition, but represents a jealous rival's natural attitude 
 to our new poHcy of turning former enemies into friends. 
 Such a transformation was bound to be gaUing to those 
 whose pohtical game it suited that we should remain at 
 enmity with France and Russia. The idea of " Einkrei- 
 sung " is only true in one very Hmited sense — as an attempt 
 to remove as many inflammable objects as possible from 
 the reach of a man who was never tired of brandishing a 
 flaming torch of " Kultur " round his head. Indeed, it is 
 not too much to say that the raffwchement of the Western 
 Powers with Russia was the inevitable result of the pre- 
 dominant position won for the Triple Alliance by the 
 success of Bismarck's pohcy of isolating the potential 
 enemies of Germany. The consoUdation of German 
 influence in Turkey only served to accentuate this fact. 
 
 The Agreements with France and Russia constituted 
 a definitely constructive policy. What still remained to 
 complete that pohcy ? Obviously an Anglo-German 
 Agreement. Many observers of foreign pohtics, especially 
 on the Liberal side (and, I have to admit, myself among 
 the number), were most anxious to attain this end. Many 
 of us had long been aware of the poisonous and reactionary 
 outlook of the Prussian Junkertum, of the officers' corps 
 and the Tirpitz clique, of the Pangerman pamphleteers 
 with their dreams — to-day mere dreams no longer ! — of 
 '' Mitteleuropa " and " Berlin to Bagdad " ; but we 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 89 
 
 consoled ourselves with a belief in the growing strength of 
 liberal and progressive elements in German society as a 
 coTinterpoise to Jingo influences, and considered that every 
 year gained for peace made the resort to arms more im- 
 probable. Events have shown that we exaggerated their 
 influence and their backbone, and even among the most 
 ardent pacifists there are not many whose eyes have not 
 been at least partially opened. 
 
 A good understanding with Germany was entirely de- 
 sirable, from the standpoint of those who wished a forward 
 policy of Social Reform at home and a restriction of activity 
 abroad to the mere retention and development of the 
 Empire. But an understanding, if it was to be attained 
 on sound lines, presupposed two things — first, that Ger- 
 many's rulers were acting hona fide, and that in any nego- 
 tiations their real aim was a permanent arrangement, free 
 from all ulterior motives. The cumulative evidence of 
 German preparedness for aggression in the spring and 
 summer of 1914 — evidence which need not be recounted 
 here — reduces this presupposition to very doubtful pro- 
 portions. Secondly, that no action which we might under- 
 take must injure existing arrangements, and that no 
 intimacy with a new acquaintance, however desirable in 
 itself, is worth the estrangement of ^n old and valued 
 friend. In other words, the Entente with France must be 
 treated upon the basis, Noli me tangere. Personally, 
 though I was appalled in July, 1914, at the prospect of 
 war with Germany, I remember now with satisfaction that 
 during that month I more than once warned my friends 
 in BerHn that they must reckon upon the absolute certainty 
 that any attack on France would involve immediate war 
 with Britain also. 
 
 Granted these two assumptions as to the necessary 
 
90 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 tactics to be followed with a view to an understanding 
 with. Germany, can we find any thread to the policy pursued 
 by Sir Edward Grey in the years immediately preceding 
 the outbreak of war ? Till 1910 he had followed the lead 
 of King Edward, and of his diplomatic advisers, who invari- 
 ably took the place of the Foreign Secretary at meetings 
 with foreign sovereigns and ministers. Since then there 
 have been growing signs of indecision and " wobbhng," 
 which were duly exploited by the Wilhelmstrasse and its 
 exponents in the British Press and in circles of international 
 finance both in London and Paris, to say nothing of the 
 cruder campaigns organised in various Continental news- 
 papers (notably the Neue Freie Presse ; the Kolnische 
 Zeitung ; the Berliner Tagehlatt, Vossische Zeitung, and 
 Kreuzzeitwig ; the Pester Lloyd, and Le Jeune Turc). 
 
 The first serious campaign of '' Grey Must Go " preceded 
 the Agadir crisis by some months, and coincided with one 
 of the more acute Cretan crises. After Agadir it was 
 renewed with increased vigour by the Germanophil section 
 of the British Press, influenced quite unconsciously, but 
 for that reason all the more effectually, by manoeuvres 
 from the German Embassy. While Sir Edward Grey was 
 being quite unjustly attacked as anti-German, the true 
 criticism upon his poHcy would have been its negative 
 character, its lack of any pronounced quality of '' pro " or 
 " anti." Being entirely honest and well-meaning, and 
 genuinely anxious for the preservation of peace, he proved 
 himself a most successful follower of King Edward's 
 " directive " ^ ; but when that was once withdrawn he 
 
 ^ It is pretty well known within the inner Liberal ring that he 
 owed his appointment to the post of Foreign Secretary to the fact 
 that the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and King 
 Edward intended to conduct their own policy and regarded him as 
 an admirable mouthpiece for their views. 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 91 
 
 tended more and more to follow the line of least resistance, 
 and to prove his good intentions (which need never have 
 been challenged — for, after all, it is not good intentions, 
 but judgment, constructive power, sympathetic knowledge, 
 and energy at the hour of danger that we are entitled to 
 demand from our Foreign Secretaries) by yielding ground 
 before a determined outcry from within the ranks of his 
 own party. To admit this incontestable fact is, however, 
 a long way from suggesting that GermanophiHsm was 
 merely the product of doctrinaire Radicalism. 
 
 From the winter of 1911 onwards there was (to the 
 initiated) a noticeable increase of overtures to Germany 
 on the part of Sir Edward Grey, the most notable incident 
 of the new era being Lord Haldane's visit to BerHn. This 
 visit, so far from being blameworthy in itself, may be 
 regarded as a laudable and genuine attempt to promote 
 good relations between Britain and Germany. But Lord 
 Haldane's subsequent attitude in relation to that event 
 is blameworthy ; for it suggests either angeUc innocence 
 or superhuman folly. Either the Cabinet was fooled by a 
 misleading account of his visit and by a concealment of 
 the disillusionment which he has publicly assured us that 
 he brought back with him, or — it is a disagreeable alter- 
 native — his pubHc utterances in the summer of 1915 contain 
 grave mis-statements. In either case, Sir Edward Grey's 
 continued intimacy with Lord Haldane, above all his 
 continued reUance on Lord Haldane's political judgment, 
 inevitably arouses misgivings, and strengthens our doubts 
 as to whether Sir Edward Grey has any definite line of 
 policy.^ 
 
 ^ One who had quite exceptional sources of information, and who 
 has few equals in historical criticism, wrote at the time the following 
 comment upon this passage : " Lord Haldane went to Berlin with 
 the full consent of the Cabinet, to try to pave the way for some 
 
92 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 * In judging this question, it is necessary to remember 
 that the warning which Lord Haldane claims to have 
 transmitted to the Cabinet early in 1912 was by no means 
 the first warning of Germany's intentions. It is certain 
 that he had received in the spring of 1908 a definite warning 
 from the then French Premier, M. Clemenceau, as to the 
 aggressive designs of Germany, of the determination of the 
 Germans not to respect Belgian neutrality, and of the 
 absolute necessity of adequate mihtary preparedness on 
 the part of England. M. ''Clemenceau assured him that 
 150,000 British troops would be of no avail, but that if 
 250,000 British troops could be landed on the other side 
 of the Channel within ten days of the outbreak of war the 
 German rush could be stopped, and that if England had 
 500,000 men ready, the course of the war would be changed. 
 In the light of our experiences since the outbreak of war 
 the wisdom of M. Clemenceau's warning is apparent. 
 
 This remarkable incident throws some light upon the 
 suicidal pohcy of " drift " which preceded the war — a 
 
 all-round agreement as to world policy, which might avert a war. 
 Incidentally he told the Kaiser that if Germany attacked France, 
 England would certainly fight. He came back with a feeling that 
 the war party had got stronger in Germany, and that the situation 
 might become serious. He was, however, entitled justly to argue 
 that however willing the Germans might be to fight Russia and 
 France, they would think twice before attacking Russia and France' 
 with the very probable chance of England as a third ; and the de- 
 finite refusal of Germany's neutrahty proposals did constitute such 
 a probabihty. Now what was he to do ? Was he to say to England, 
 ' These Germans are plotting a war against France and Russia. 
 We must come in when they do, and adopt universal service at 
 once ' ? Such a course would inevitably have precipitated the 
 attack on France, whom he knew to be unprepared ; for it was not 
 to be supposed that the Germans would allow the grass to grow under 
 their feet until we had created a big army. He did in my opinion 
 the only thing possible. He created a large StafE College, so that the 
 brain of the army would be big enough when the emergency should 
 
 come." 
 
THE FAILUEE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 93 
 
 policy of moral commitments towards Continental States 
 without any preparation to meet their probable conse- 
 quences. Such a lack of policy (for policy it most em- 
 phatically was not) was equally insane as the basis of a 
 system of European alliances in which, military obligations 
 are the inevitable corollary to political advantages, and, 
 on the other hand, as a means towards attaining an agree- 
 ment with Germany ; for it should have been obvious from 
 the very first that the only factor Ukely to impress the 
 German Government with the need for coming to terms 
 was a clear and overwhelming demonstration of armed 
 power. In foreign pohcy, as in the schoolroom, it is 
 impossible to have one's cake and eat it. 
 
 But not merely did Sir Edward Grey fail to appreciate 
 the psychology of the German ruUng class. As late as 
 May 1914 he betrayed his complete failure to gauge the 
 psychology of France, when he remarked to M. Clemenceau, 
 " At last I am convinced that France is a pacific country." 
 Translated into English psychology, what can such a 
 remark mean, save that tiU then he had looked upon 
 France as a jingo nation, permeated with the spirit of 
 " revanche," and had regarded the indefinite nature of his 
 commitments towards her as a means of keeping the 
 " switch " in his own hands. The best that an apologist 
 could say is that the observation was let fall by a man who, 
 after holding for eight years the office of Foreign Secretary, 
 was paying his first visit to the capital of his country's 
 closest poHtical friend ! 
 
 So long as peace endured in Europe, Sir Edward Grey's 
 lack of a constructive pohcy was only apparent to a few 
 rare observers. His undoubted eagerness to preserve 
 European peace and his genuine efforts in that direction 
 served to conceal his defects under a cloak of admitted 
 
94 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 * 
 
 good intentions. It was just these good intentions, and his 
 obvious quaUties as a straightforward EngHsh gentleman, 
 which explained the admiration which we felt for him so 
 long as we remained in ignorance of the inner history of 
 his policy. 
 
 But what of this inner history ? As we shall see, a 
 considerable period before the outbreak of war had been 
 devoted by Sir Edward Grey to private overtures to 
 Germany and even to risky negotiations with her behind 
 the back of the other two Entente Powers ; while all the 
 time the German campaign of " G.M.G.," representing him 
 as hostile to Germany, were merely skilful manoeuvres of 
 the Wilhelmstrasse Press Bureau. Each time thev were 
 repeated, his lack of a settled policy, combined with his 
 honestly pacific tendencies, increased his eagerness to meet 
 the critics at least halfway ; with the result that his devotion 
 to peace led to the imposition of periodic blackmail. In 
 support of this assertion a whole series of concrete facts 
 may be adduced. 
 
 In the autumn of 1911 Italy, by her invasion of Tripoli, 
 became involved in war with Turkey, and Sir Edward Grey 
 adopted an attitude which was anything but favourable to 
 Italy. In the course of the autumn and winter he twice 
 sent Circulars to the other Great Powers inviting them to 
 address a joint Note to Italy, warning her not to tamper 
 with the Dardanelles. The only effect of this step was a 
 severe diplomatic snub for its author. The second invita- 
 tion presented to the Austro-Hungarian Government in the 
 sense indicated was actually handed by Count Aehrenthal ^ 
 himself to the Italian Ambassador in Vienna, with the 
 words : " This may amuse you. I shall not answer it." 
 
 Sir Edward Grey's Balkan poHcy will be dealt with more 
 ^ Then still Minister for Foreign Affairs. 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 95 
 
 fully at a later stage. For the moment it may suffice to 
 refer to his naive acceptance of the Chairmanship of the 
 Ambassadors' Conference in London, thus putting the 
 Entente in a permanent minority, playing into the hands 
 of Germany, and incidentally suggesting that once more he 
 was not following any definite line of policy. His eagerness 
 to forward the cause of European peace was altogether 
 praiseworthy, but such an aim, when pursued as a mere 
 abstraction, becomes a chimera. During these conferences, 
 early in 1913, the former Grand Vizier, Hakki Pasha, was 
 sent to London to negotiate about the Bagdad Railway. 
 His mission is understood to have been arranged in Berlin 
 between the Young Turk leader, Djavid Bey, and the 
 Wilhelmstrasse. The Bagdad Railway negotiations dragged 
 on for over a year, until at last an Anglo-German agreement, 
 with Turkey as a subsidiary party, had been reached. It 
 was initialled in the late spring of 1914, but had not yet 
 been signed when war broke out. The pubUcation of its 
 contents to-day would hardly be calculated to strengthen 
 Sir Edward Grey's position as a bulwark of British interests 
 against Germany. 
 
 The Treaty of London (May 1913) was virtually imposed 
 upon the Balkan delegates by strong pressure from Sir 
 Edward Grey ; and Bulgaria in particular regarded Britain 
 as irrevocably committed to supporting her claim to the 
 Enos-Midia line. Yet, when Bulgaria's criminal attack 
 upon Serbia and Greece ended in disaster and the Turks 
 took advantage of her distress to reoccupy Adrianople, 
 Sir Edward Grey, far from holding Turkey to her newly 
 assumed Treaty obHgations, actually continued to negotiate 
 with Hakki Pasha about the Bagdad Railway, while the 
 Ottoman Government were engaged in tearing up the 
 Balkan Treaty concluded under his auspices. He did this 
 
96 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 in the teeth of urgent warnings from experienced advisers 
 as to the disastrous consequences for British prestige in 
 the Near East of so undignified a proceeding. His whole 
 attitude was not merely treated in Central Europe as an 
 ignominious " climb down," but also strengthened through- 
 out the East the belief that Britain was afraid of Turkey 
 and would do anything for her separate advantage. It is 
 superfluous to point out that this abandonment of Bulgaria 
 rankled fatally in the minds of King Ferdinand and his 
 statesmen, and explains as much as anything else the dis- 
 trust with which they have regarded British diplomacy, and 
 which finally decided them to adhere to the Central Powers. 
 What is an even more fatal criticism from the diplomatic 
 point of view, Sir Edward Grey deeply offended Bulgaria 
 without at the same time doing anything to conciliate 
 Greece, Serbia, and Roumania, the two latter of whom it 
 had so long been a tradition of British policy to treat as 
 negligible quantities. 
 
 Much more serious and open to even graver criticism 
 is the parallel .negotiation with Germany regarding the 
 Portuguese colonies. The origin of this affair is wrapped 
 in considerable mystery, and dates from before Sir Edward 
 Grey's accession to office. When at the end of November 
 1899, soon after the outbreak of the South African War, 
 Mr. Chamberlain made friendly overtures to Germany, the 
 idea of an Anglo-German agreement was mooted by William 
 II., and suggestions were made for a partition of the Portu- 
 guese colonies in the event of their hquidation. Certain 
 negotiations were conducted behind the back of Lord 
 Salisbury, then in poor health and abroad ; and a Treaty 
 embodying a scheme of compensations and territorial 
 rearrangements was actually initialled. It was, however, 
 never signed, for two reasons. On the one hand, Lord 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 97 
 
 Salisbury opposed it, doubtless recognising that we were 
 merely putting a premium on German intrigues for the 
 destruction of Portugal. On the other hand, it was dis- 
 covered to be unworkable, if only because the Dutch had 
 a right of pre-emption on the Portuguese half of the island 
 of Timur. The scheme was thus upset and remained in 
 abeyance until Sir Edward Grey, having been freely accused 
 by the " pro-German " clique of wishing to prevent Ger- 
 many from obtaining " a place in the sun," agreed to revise 
 the Treaty and make it workable. This was in the winter 
 and spring of 1913-14. When it is remembered that the 
 Portuguese possessions include points so important as Goa, 
 Madeira, Cape Verde, Angola, and Mozambique, it will at 
 once be obvious that a scheme of partition of these colonies 
 might have enabled the Germans entirely to encircle the 
 Dominion of South Africa. 
 
 Yet not a word concerning these negotiations seems to 
 have been allowed to transpire, and if the leading South 
 African statesmen were ever taken into the confidence of 
 the home government (a point upon which we are in- 
 sufficiently informed), it is at least certain that Dominion 
 parUamentary and pubHc opinion was completely ignored. 
 The natural Line of defence for the Foreign Office was that 
 the new partition was more favourable than that of the 
 earlier Treaty ; but this is an argument savouring strongly 
 of the era of Metternich, and ill adapted for the use of a 
 Liberal Government and Foreign Secretary. 
 
 The afiair, which had originally been kept secret from 
 the French, got to their ears early in 1914 and caused great 
 consternation in Paris. Two messages were sent to London 
 to the effect that if the fact of the Treaty's conclusion were 
 to be published before or during King George's impending 
 visit to Pg-ris^ th^ Government of the Republic could not 
 
 H 
 
98 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 be responsible for the consequences ! France, indeed, is 
 understood to have lodged a protest at Berlin, as she was 
 entitled to do under the existing Franco- German agree- 
 ments. Finally, in ^dew of the French attitude, the 
 Germans asked that the matter should be left in abeyance 
 for the time. The British Foreign Office interpreted this 
 as a sign that the Treaty was to be dropped ; but Prince 
 Lichnowsky, as late as the end of June, 1914, privately 
 declared this view to be unfounded, and stated that he 
 hoped to find means of solving all difficulties. Chief of 
 these obstacles was the fact that Sir Edward Grey, after 
 having initialled the Treaty, took the view that he could 
 not sign it finally unless it was to be published, and that 
 in order to make the situation quite clear he would be 
 obHged to pubHsh simultaneously the so-caUed " Windsor > 
 Treaty," which had been concluded with Portugal, and by 
 which Britain guarantees the integrity of Portugal and her 
 possessions. He appears, however, to have made no 
 arrangements by which these two apparently inconsistent 
 Treaties could be reconciled. Germany naturally raised 
 objections to this course, which would have made her look 
 the dupe of England. The naivete of such a suggestion 
 on the part of Sir Edward Grey seems yet another indica- 
 tion that he had no policy, but was merely striving bhndly 
 towards peace, in a weU-meaning and honest but entirely 
 aimless manner. 
 
 His whole attitude on the outbreak of war is in keeping 
 with this theory. Given the negative policy of the four 
 previous years, and given also the facts of the Central 
 European situation and the absence of any positive aim (for 
 the platonic desire to avert war is not a positive, but a 
 negative, aim), it is hard to see how he could have done 
 better during the fourteen critical days which ushered in 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 99 
 
 the Great War. But even his best endeavours in that 
 crowded period, regarded in the Hght of previous history 
 and of subsequent developments, only serve to emphasise 
 still further his lack of a definite poUcy, and that fatal 
 vacillation between alternative actions which has proved so 
 disastrous in his dealings with the Balkan States. 
 
 Meanwhile it will be obvious that all this necessarily 
 appears to the German mind in a very different hght, and 
 explains the extraordinary bitterness of the more honest 
 German poHtical circles towards Sir Edward Grey, and 
 also the secret satisfaction of that inner ring which knows 
 the real truth regarding his purposelessness and vacillation, 
 that he should continue to direct our policy, or rather to 
 deprive our policy of all directive, while supplying the 
 German ^ nation with a convenient and obvious target for 
 projectiles of abuse.^ Those who do not know him as we 
 in this country know him — and that apphes to the vast 
 majority of Germans — fail to appreciate the degree to 
 which his character blends pure subjective honesty with that 
 ultra-English quahty of objective inconsistency which Hes 
 at the root of all Continental misconceptions as to Enghsh 
 national character. Hence they invariably jump to the 
 conclusion that he was wittingly dishonest"* and that alj his 
 negotiations regarding the Balkans, Portugal, and Bagdad 
 were an elaborate " bHnd," conceahng plans of exceptional 
 perfidy and intended to forestall Germany's own designs 
 of aggression till the right moment arrived. The delays 
 
 ^ WiUiam U. performs, with more reason, the same function in 
 this country ; but the average EngUshman has less need of an 
 " Aunt Sally " than the average German. With the former grum- 
 bhng is merely a useful tradition and an incentive to his rulers ; with 
 the latter, a necessary foundation for the elaborate logic upon which 
 he builds up any political case, and without which he feels absolutely 
 bewildered. 
 
100 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 between initialling and signature might be taken to lend 
 some colour to this view. Unquestionably those who ex- 
 plain the motives of others by the motives likely to actuate 
 themselves in such circumstances — and this is a typically 
 German frame of mind — might be excused for arguing on 
 these lines. 
 
 No doubt the German Emperor, who tried " blufi " upon 
 Sir Edward Grey as upon so many other people (on two 
 separate occasions he assured him in conversation that in 
 the event of war the German armies would reach Paris in 
 little over a fortnight), was perfectly well aware that such 
 suspicions were based upon error. But the effect of Sir 
 Edward Grey's lack of policy upon German psychology 
 was undoubtedly a very vital factor during the first period 
 of the war. 
 
 In this connection we may point to the allegation 
 brought by the German Chancellor in the summer of 1915 
 against Sir Edward Grey, of having said in his parting 
 interview with Prince Lichnowsky that Britain might 
 render to Germany more effectual services by taking part 
 in the war than by remaining neutral. This assertion 
 has not been denied by Sir Edward Grey, though in 
 his letter to the Press he denied the conclusions which 
 Herr von Bethmann - Hollweg drew from it. Yet if it 
 be true, it proves even more conclusively his lack of a 
 policy. 
 
 Within six weeks of the day when he is alleged to have 
 made this remark, we find Sir Edward Grey concluding 
 a convention with Eussia and France, pledging us not to 
 conclude a separate peace. Once more, then, we are 
 confronted by two alternatives — either he said nothing of 
 the kind or he has no policy, for no one with a clear policy 
 could conceivably have made such a remark in good faith 
 
THE FAILUKE OF SIK EDWAKD GREY 101 
 
 and followed it up so rapidly by a commitment wMch 
 would render it meaningless. 
 
 The letter addressed by Sir Edward Grey to the British 
 Press in answer to the Chancellor contains one specially 
 illuminating passage. Writing a year after the outbreak 
 of war, he complained that the Germans, by rejecting his 
 proposals for arbitration, had destroyed the last chance of 
 averting war ; " and what a good chance it was." The 
 phrase is either meaningless or, taken in its proper context 
 with the various secret treaties and negotiations to which 
 we have referred, it means that he was prepared to concede 
 to Germany practically all her demands in return for peace. 
 Criticism of such an attitude may be limited to pointing out 
 that any one who knew anything of the German character, 
 especially of the ruling German's character, would have 
 known that this was the surest way to confirm them in 
 their aggressive designs — designs for which we now have 
 overwhelming evidence. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey's lack of a policy would have been 
 highly dangerous even if it had involved complete pass- 
 ivity ; but though there was no guiding principle there was 
 plenty of activity. This took the form of a growing tend- 
 ency towards secret diplomacy, a growing habit of leaving 
 Parliament, and still more the country at large, completely 
 in the dark as to foreign policy, and a growing reliance 
 on a tiny clique, of which more than one influential 
 member had the closest ties, both political and private, 
 with high German diplomatic circles. The pledge given to 
 Parliament after the first Moroccan crisis, that no further 
 arrangements would be concluded with foreign Powers 
 without previous consultation with ParHament, has been 
 repeatedly ignored, not merely in spirit, but in letter. 
 (That the Dominions have been ignored in matters of 
 
102 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 foreign policy is, of course, the fault, not of Sir Edward 
 Grey, but of the lack of any Imperial constitution ; and 
 one of the first tasks which will confront us when peace 
 returns will be to remedy this deficiency.) The apologists 
 of Sir Edward Grey will doubtless reply that he observed 
 the strict letter of the pledge by only initialling, not sign- 
 ing, the Treaties in question. But even this excuse cannot 
 be pleaded for the Windsor Treaty, still less for the fatal 
 Treaty concluded between the Entente and Italy in 
 April 1915. 
 
 II 
 
 During the first nine months of the war Italy's neutrality 
 presented one of the most vital and delicate problems in 
 the European situation. Our traditional friendship with 
 Italy rendered the prospect of her military co-operation 
 highly agreeable, the more so because the general aims of 
 her policy seemed to conflict neither with British political 
 interests nor with the more abstract aims of general policy 
 proclaimed by British statesmen. Our programme rests 
 upon the principle of nationality and the rights of small 
 nations. The two chief aims pursued by the Italian 
 Government and General Staff — the completion of Italian 
 national unity and the acquisition of a safe strategic fron- 
 tier — are at once legitimate in themselves and in no way 
 incompatible with the Entente's programme. J There was 
 thus no conflict of principle between Italy and the Triple 
 Entente, and it ought to have been perfectly possible to 
 reach an equitable compromise between the national claims 
 of Italians and Southern Slavs. Unhappily, those who 
 conducted the negotiations between Italy and the Entente 
 seem to have been inspired by other motives. The secret 
 Treaty, as finally concluded on April 27th, assigns to Italy 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 103 
 
 the Trentino, Gorizia, Trieste, the line of the Julian Alps 
 to near Finme, the whole of Istria and its islands, the whole 
 of the Dalmatian mainland and islands down to Cape 
 Planka, between Sibenik (Sebenico) and Trogir (Trali), and 
 finally the South Dalmatian islands of Vis (Lissa), Hvar 
 (Lesina), and Korcula (Cuxzola). Such an arrangement, if 
 ever carried into effect, would involve the handing over 
 to Italy of at least 700,000 Slavs, and indeed of the very 
 Slavs among whom the movement for Serbo-Croat national 
 unity has struck deepest root. As its framers were from 
 the first well aware that it could only be imposed in direct 
 defiance of the wishes of the population concerned, and 
 that Serbia, in her position of trustee for her kinsmen, 
 could never become a party to such a betrayal, it was 
 decided to conceal the whole negotiation from the Serbian 
 Government and incidentally to ignore the numerous exiled 
 Serbo-Croat leaders who were in every way qualified to 
 represent the inhabitants of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Istria. 
 The whole responsibility does not rest on the shoulders of 
 Sir Edward Grey : it must be shared by M. Delcasse and 
 by MM. Sazonov and Isvolski, who were influenced by the 
 same narrow Orthodox feeling which has been responsible 
 for Russian misrule among the Ruthene Uniate CathoHcs 
 during the occupation of Gahcia. But it is to be observed 
 that neither the French nor the Russian statesman had 
 committed himself to the high-sounding phrases of the 
 British Government on the subject of nationality and the 
 rights of small nations. By acknowledging Italy's right 
 to occupy the Dalmatian coast upon strategic grounds and 
 against the wishes of its inhabitants. Sir Edward Grey 
 knocked the bottom out of the British programme, and 
 robbed Britain of the moral right to denounce the German 
 conquest of Belgium. Germany has as good a right to 
 
104 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Belgium and Holland as Italy has to Dalmatia. Both 
 claims rest on strategic reasons, and upon the sword. 
 Italy's claim to Dalmatia is the less tenable because, in 
 addition to floating the rights of race and language, it 
 ignores the economic facts of the situation and would spell 
 complete and immediate ruin for that unhappy province 
 by cutting it ofi from its economic hinterland. 
 
 Those who understood the psychology and aspirations 
 of the Southern Slavs and of the other races of the Dual 
 Monarchy urgently warned Sir Edward Grey before it was 
 too late that Italy's entry into the war was the one thing 
 needed to galvanise Austria-Hungary into life at a moment 
 when she was cracking at every joint. Their warnings were 
 disregarded, and they were assured that military opinion 
 expected Italian intervention to be decisive. Yet, as might 
 have been predicted, the Austrians were able to hold the 
 ItaUans in check on that difficult frontier without seriously 
 afiecting their power of offensive in Galicia, and within 
 three months were actually able to reduce the garrisons 
 of Pola and of Bosnia to half their strength before Italy's 
 entry. This Treaty was the work of a small group of 
 diplomatists following thoroughly Metternichian principles. 
 On the French and British side it was a gross betrayal of 
 those principles for which the two peoples fondly imagined 
 their representatives to be contending ; on the Russian 
 side it was an intrigue directed by a few reactionaries 
 against the Catholic element, without which Jugoslav unity 
 is impossible ; while on the Italian side it in no way reflects 
 the generous impulses which led the nation to break its 
 bondage to the Triple Alliance.^ 
 
 ^ In the original I here added the following sentences : *' The 
 progress made by public opinion in Italy during the last six months 
 encourages me to refer openly to-day to an arrangement which has 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 105 
 
 III 
 
 The Balkan policy of Sir Edward Grey was for all the 
 world suggestive of a child trying to work out a Chinese 
 puzzle with the wrong bricks. He never, either before or 
 during the war, showed any signs of comprehending the 
 vital significance of the Balkans in a European war, above 
 all to British policy. His lack of a constructive policy 
 towards Serbia has become notorious in the light of recent 
 events ; but it was no less marked at the outbreak of war. 
 Entente policy towards Serbia and Bulgaria was tacitly 
 left to Russia to manage, on the basis of the comfortable 
 catchword that we must not be more Slav than the 
 Russians. This in itself is a fatal mistake, for it 
 overlooks both the fatalistic trait which influences the 
 Russian character so deeply and also the inexpressibly 
 narrow outlook of Russian governing circles even in Slav 
 matters — two factors which quite definitely necessitate 
 our being more, not less, Slav than the Russians in 
 such questions as the Southern Slav, the Polish, and the 
 Bohemian. 
 
 The complete indifierence displayed by Sir Edward Grey 
 as to the merits of the dispute between Serbia and Austria- 
 Hungary, and the problems which had given rise to it 
 (Blue-book, Nos. 1 and 5), can no doubt be justified by his 
 earnest desire to preserve peace and to avoid anything which 
 
 been known to me from the beginning ; for it is clear that the Italian 
 public lias now reached a truer appreciation of the moral as well as 
 the strategic and military factors in the situation and of the vital 
 need for a close understanding between Italy and the whole Jugo- 
 slav race, whose interests are identical with her own. The moment 
 has arrived for a generous revision, such as would win the Jugoslavs 
 for ever to the Italian side and ensure permanent peace in the 
 Adriatic." This reads cruelly in 1919. 
 
106 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 might offend Austrian or German susceptibilities at the 
 critical period. But he must even then have been perfectly 
 weU aware that the Serbian Government was entirely 
 innocent of the Archduke's murder, that one of the assassins 
 was the son of an Austrian police spy, that the behaviour of 
 the Bosnian police was something more than strange,^ and 
 that the whole Austrian case against Serbia lay in the hands 
 of Count Forgach, the man who, while Austro-Hungarian 
 Minister' in Belgrade some years previously, had been 
 publicly proved responsible for an elaborate plot of forgery 
 and espionage against Serbia and the Serbo-Croat Coali- 
 tion in Croatia. 
 
 Serbia was from the first excluded from the position 
 and privileges of an ally ; but that did not deter the Entente 
 from putting pressure upon her to invade Austro-Hungarian 
 territory, when such a diversion might assist the allied 
 cause. In September 1914 this invasion was carried out 
 in the teeth of expert military opinion and of the obvious 
 alphabetic facts of the situation. It of course failed, both 
 in Bosnia and in Slavonia ; indeed, strategically it was 
 bound to fail ; and the results were disastrous for the Serbo- 
 Croat population, which had welcomed the invaders, and 
 was hideously punished when the authorities returned a 
 few weeks later. 
 
 So httle had Sir Edward Grey gauged the true situation 
 in Serbia in the autumn and winter, that the final rout of 
 the Austrians took him completely by surprise, though all 
 who knew Serbia were well aware that it was purely a 
 matter of making good the deficiency of ammunition in the 
 
 ^ In this connection it is worthy of notice that as early as May 
 1914 a prominent New York newspaper announced that a plot 
 against the life of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was being planned 
 in Vienna, and that the intention was to throw the blame upon the 
 Serbian Government ! 
 
THE FAILUKE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 107 
 
 Serbian army. When at last this began to arrive, the 
 tide turned very rapidly.^ 
 
 At the very moment when lack of ammunition made 
 itself most seriously felt an incident occurred which throws 
 a flood of Hght upon the Bulgarian attitude, and suppHed 
 a warning which was disregarded. As the ammunition 
 upon which Serbia's salvation depended was at last be- 
 ginning to arrive, strong Bulgarian bands, with machine- 
 guns, raided the Vardar valley from the nearest point of 
 Bulgarian territory and destroyed one of the chief bridges 
 on the only railway linking Salonica with the outer world. 
 This dastardly act was passed ofl by the Government of 
 Sofia as a regrettable incident of which they had no cognis- 
 ance ; but every child knows that a raid with machine-guns 
 can hardly be undertaken even in the most primitive 
 country without the knowledge of the authorities. 
 
 Save to the blind, Bulgaria's attitude has been perfectly 
 logical from the very beginning of the war. Those who 
 controlled her destinies were fully conscious that the mid- 
 night attack of June 29th, 1913, which began the Second 
 Balkan War, was both a crime and a blunder, and were 
 savagely angry at its failure. They were determined to 
 upset the Treaty of Bucarest at the earliest opportunity, 
 they were hostile to those who had imposed it, and at the 
 same time they were distrustful of those who had induced 
 them to conclude the Treaty of London under what was 
 little short of a guarantee, and had then almost without a 
 murmur allowed the Turks to treat it as a mere scrap of 
 paper. Hence, when the great war came, they were with- 
 out illusions, and resolved at all costs to be on the winning 
 
 ^ That the necessary steps were taken was very largely due to 
 the urgent messages of the British Military Attach^, Colonel 
 Harrison, and the then correspondent of the Times, Mr. Crawfurd 
 Price. 
 
108 EUROPE TN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 side. During the first and second Austrian invasions of 
 Serbia (August— September 1914) Bulgaria held back, for 
 three very good reasons. She was afraid to move until 
 she saw which side the Turks would take : she was un- 
 certain as to the attitude which Greece and Roumania might 
 adopt in the event of her entry on the German side ; and 
 she was impressed by the Russian conquest of Galicia. 
 When the third Austrian invasion seemed about to triumph, 
 she tried to drive the last nail into the coffin of Serbia by 
 cutting the Vardar valley. Here she was merely following 
 the approved Bulgarian poHcy of " a stab in the back." 
 After its unexpected failure she reverted to strict neutrality. 
 To all suggestions of intervention she replied by an em- 
 phatic insistence upon the cession of Macedonia — with 
 " effective guarantees " for its retention — as the only 
 possible programme which could secure her adhesion to 
 one side or the other. 
 
 For some years previously only two factors had counted 
 in Bulgaria. The first was King Ferdinand, who was 
 Austrophil and still more Magyarophil, and who had 
 reached a private understanding with Vienna at least as 
 early as June 1913, if not in the late summer of 1908, when 
 the joint Austro-Bulgarian cowp against Turkey was in 
 preparation. The second factor was the " Macedonian " 
 party, consisting of political refugees from Turkish, and 
 latterly from Serbian and Greek, rule in Macedonia. This 
 party controlled a large section of the army and the Sofiote 
 bureaucracy, stuck at nothing in its savage fanaticism, 
 and was pohtically bhnd to everything save the redemp- 
 tion of Macedonia. The moment that its aims coin- 
 cided with those of the King, who controls foreign 
 pohcy without even consulting ParHament, there was 
 nothing else in the country which could check them. 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 109 
 
 This alliance represented a league between diplomacy and 
 brute force. 
 
 At the turn of the year Bulgaria noticed a growing 
 tendency on the part of the Entente to exercise pressure 
 upon Serbia, and began to regard the Entente as more 
 likely to deliver the Macedonian goods than the rival firm 
 of the Central Powers. The question at issue has been 
 persistently confused by the advocates of Bulgarian or 
 Serbian ethnological theories. In reality it was merely a 
 question of Baksheesh. Bulgaria had fought for Mace- 
 donia — had fought by methods of poHtical and military 
 treachery — and had lost. But after all, Macedonia was 
 the price of Bulgaria's participation, and if the Entente 
 valued her mihtary aid against the Turks sufficiently highly 
 to pay the inevitable price, then it had to be paid quite 
 irrespective of the Treaty of Bucarest or the mediaeval 
 frontiers of Tsar Dushan. Unhappily, it was not till 
 August that Sir Edward Grey realised that any solution of 
 the Macedonian question had of necessity to be imposed 
 upon the Serbs, instead of being left to their initiative. 
 
 In February 1915, however, a definite offer of inter- 
 vention against the Turks was made to the Entente by Dr. 
 Radoslavov. It is not altogether clear through what 
 medium it was made, but for some inexplicable reason it 
 was not transmitted to London.^ As we shall see, the 
 Entente snubbed the smaller Powers when they made over- 
 tuxes to us and then exposed itself to counter-snubs by 
 
 ^ Almost at the same time King Ferdinand himself, as a member 
 of the House of Coburg, made a direct overture in the form of an 
 autograph letter to King George. The fact that he went behind his 
 Cabinet, his General Staff, and even his own secretary, and handed 
 it direct to a private individual of high standing, may throw doubt 
 upon his good faith, but surely did not justify those who prevented 
 it from being either dehvered or answered. 
 
110 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 making undignified overtures to them after the psycho- 
 logical moment had already passed. 
 
 For the next six months Sir Edward Grey played with 
 the idea of a Serbo-Bulgarian Agreement ; and after the 
 Russian retreat and the Suvla Bay disasters the Bulgarians 
 responded by playing with Sir Edward Grey. In August 
 he at last reahsed what was obvious in January, that 
 internal conditions in Serbia made it impossible for her to 
 yield Macedonia voluntarily, and that strong if friendly 
 pressure on the part of the Entente was an indispensable 
 condition. But quite apart from having realised this six 
 months too. late, he had in the meantime, by the Treaty 
 with Italy and by his steady refusal to accept Serbia as an 
 ally, enormously increased the difficulty of concessions by 
 the Serbian Government. Serbia could not be asked to 
 concede Bulgarian " national unity " in a form which she 
 has steadily refused to recognise, at any rate without an 
 assurance that the Allies would support her own claim of 
 Serbo-Croat national unity ; and it was just this assurance 
 that Sir Edward Grey and his colleagues were indisposed 
 to give, owing to their commitments to Italy. From the 
 moment that the mismanagement of the Dardanelles Ex- 
 pedition became apparent to the Bulgarians (and it must be 
 remembered that the whole Balkan Peninsula was ringing 
 with the details at a time when the British public was still 
 allowed to know nothing), only one thing could have pre- 
 vented them from joining the Central Powers, and that 
 was the prompt display of military force, as a practical 
 proof that we should not allow our ally to be crushed. Un- 
 happily, Sir Edward Grey and his military advisers showed 
 only too clearly that they did not appreciate the issues at 
 stake. They did not realise what has been obvious for the 
 past uijie months, even to the man in the street, that Serbia 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 111 
 
 alone blocked the German advance to Constantinople and 
 Bagdad, and that Serbia alone provided the road for a 
 serious ofEensive against Germany's weakest spot, the 
 great Hungarian plain. 
 
 IV' 
 
 Throughout the period wasted in negotiations with 
 Bulgaria there was always an alternative policy. Instead 
 of offering the unscrupulous Ferdinand the territory of our 
 aUy or our friend in the name of a principle for which he 
 cared nothing, we might have taken our stand on the Treaty 
 of Bucarest and rallied Greece and Roumania in its de- 
 fence. Unhappily, our pohcy towards Greece has been 
 even more unsatisfactory than our poUcy towards Bulgaria. 
 All through the autumn of 1914 Greece was known* to be 
 willing to come in on our side whenever we wanted her ; 
 but we never did want her, and indeed steadily discouraged 
 her intervention. Early in December the situation changed, 
 and the Entente invited Greece to join them, but as no 
 promise of support against Bulgaria, in the event of her 
 joining the Central Powers, could be obtained, the Greek 
 Government not unnaturally declined to take the risk. 
 None the less, there is the strongest reason to beheve that 
 at the very beginning of the year detailed plans for the 
 intervention of Greece on the side of the Allies were laid 
 before the British Government with the knowledge and con- 
 sent of King Constantine, and that they were not even 
 considered. In the last days of January Mr. Venizelos 
 drew up his famous Memorandum to the King, definitely 
 advising intervention, and, if necessary, even the cession 
 of Kavala to Bulgaria, in return for the acquisition of 
 Smyrna. This latter proposal was, however, promptly 
 withdrawn in view of the revival of Bulgaria's 5n£|,ncial 
 
112 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 arrangement with Berlin, the Greek Premier naturally- 
 treating this as a proof that his Bulgarian colleague was 
 not " doing business " with the Entente. In March, in 
 view of the attack on the Dardanelles, which is believed 
 to have been undertaken in the teeth of advice from the 
 Greek General Staff, Britain and France again invited the 
 Greeks to join us, and Mr. Venizelos went so far as to favour 
 intervention without any definite guarantees from the 
 Entente. The rejection of this poHcy by King Constantine 
 led to the resignation of Mr. Venizelos and the formation 
 of the Gounaris Cabinet. Only a few weeks after its acces- 
 sion to power, tentative proposals were made on its behalf 
 to the Entente through a member of the French Cabinet. 
 Prince George of Greece was sent to Paris by his brother, 
 the King, with a virtual offer of intervention in return for 
 the Entente Powers guaranteeing the integrity of Greek 
 territory. The French were inclined to consider the offer, 
 but it was rejected by London on the ground that no atten- 
 tion could be paid to " unauthorised amateur diplomacy." 
 This astonishing phrase was allowed to reach the King of 
 Greece, and having been applied to his own brother on a 
 mission which was anything but unauthorised, naturally 
 gave the greatest possible offence. 
 
 August came, and with it the moment when the German 
 plan for the invasion of Serbia (which had been in careful 
 preparation ever since German troops first appeared in the 
 Hungarian Banat in January 1915) was at last complete, 
 and when the straightening of the German line against 
 Russia made possible the release of the necessary troops. 
 Sir Edward Grey, instead of taking immediate steps in 
 conjunction with his alhes to meet this new menace, was 
 engaged in ineffectual efforts to repair the mischief caused 
 by his betrayal of the Southern Slav cause on the Adriatic. 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 113 
 
 It was only after Sofia knew the Germans to be ready that 
 the Allies summoned Serbia to consent to the cession of 
 Macedonia to the Bulgarians, undertaking themselves to 
 garrison the disputed territory till the end of the war. 
 But by that time Ferdinand had already made up his mind 
 that the Central Powers were going to win ; while even the 
 Entente's friends in Sofia were rendered suspicious by the 
 fact that our offer to garrison Macedonia was limited to 
 the east bank of the Vardar, whereas the districts most 
 coveted and least likely to be disgorged lay on the west 
 bank. This fact did not, of course, decide the issue, but 
 it is interesting as showing how even in small details we 
 invariably contrived to create an unfortunate impression. 
 
 The actual invasion, foreseen by all students of the 
 Balkans for nine months previously, found the Entente 
 Governments, and, above all. Sir Edward Grey, not merely 
 wholly unprepared, but actually relying upon Greece to 
 rescue us from the consequences of our own inaction. How 
 little our leaders grasped the situation may be gathered 
 from the fact that, three weeks before the Germans opened 
 fire on the Danube, one of the highest military authorities 
 in England assured a Serbian representative that in his 
 opinion the whole operation was probably bluff. 
 
 When hard facts disproved this opinion, it might have 
 been expected that we should act promptly and strain 
 every nerve to recover lost ground and to redeem a situa- 
 tion which was becoming grave, but was still far from 
 desperate. Instead of this. Sir Edward Grey pinned his 
 whole faith upon. Greece fulfilling her Treaty with Serbia by 
 a declaration of war against Bulgaria. The common view 
 of this treaty is that Serbia was bound to furnish 150,000 
 troops against Bulgaria in the event of the latter attacking 
 one or other of the contracting parties ; and as, in view of 
 
 I 
 
lU EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 • 
 
 the Austro-German menace from the north, that number 
 could not be spread by the Serbs, Mr. Venizelos, on Sept- 
 ember 21st, asked France and Britain to make good the 
 deficiency, and thus enable Greece to observe her part of 
 the Treaty with some reasonable chance of success. It was 
 on this basis that the allied troops were sent to Salonica. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Treaty was much more com- 
 prehensive than is generally supposed. Under its pro- 
 visions the casus foederis arises not merely in the event of 
 a Bulgarian attack on Serbia, but also of an attack from 
 any other quarter also ; and therefore Greece, in not coming 
 to Serbia's aid against Austria-Hungary in 1914, had 
 already broken her pledge. Hence Sir Edward Grey, who 
 must have been well aware of this fact, was surely running 
 a very grave risk when he relied upon Greek constancy in 
 a situation which his own diplomatic failures had rendered 
 infinitely less favourable. 
 
 On September 23rd Bulgaria mobilised against Serbia ; 
 yet on September 27th Sir Edward Grey practically vetoed 
 Serbia's proposal to take advantage of her own military 
 preparedness and to attack Bulgaria before she could be 
 ready. Next day (September 28th) in the House of 
 Commons he uttered his famous pledge that, in the event 
 of Bulgarian aggression, " we are prepared to give to our 
 friends in the Balkans all the support in our power, in the 
 manner that would be most welcome to them, in concert 
 with our alhes, without reserve and without quahfication." 
 At the moment every one in England, and above all in 
 Serbia, took this to mean that we were going to send Serbia 
 the military help for which she was clamouring ; but on 
 November 3rd Sir Edward Grey explained to an astonished 
 world that he merely meant to convey that after Bulgaria 
 had joined Germany " there would be no more talk of con- 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIE EDWARD GREY 115 
 
 cessions from Greece or Serbia." The naivete which could 
 prompt such an explanation is only equalled by the con- 
 fusion of mind which could read this interpretation into a 
 phrase so explicit and unequivocal. 
 
 If the references to Serbia in his statement of September 
 28th were extraordinarily misleading, his simultaneous 
 references to Greece were directly mischievous in their 
 effect. Following upon a prolonged attempt to barter 
 Serbian territory to Bulgaria in the teeth of Greek dis- 
 approval (based upon fear for the fate of Greek Mace- 
 donia), his assurance that Bulgaria had no aggressive 
 intentions (this, five days after the Bulgarian army had 
 begun to concentrate between Vidin and Zaje6ar !) and 
 that in Britain there was not only no hostility, but " a warm 
 feeling of sympathy for the Bulgarian people," created 
 anger and consternation at Athens, and was directly re- 
 sponsible for the fall of Mr. Venizelos and the King's 
 repudiation of the Serbo-Greek Treaty. Then at the critical 
 moment, when Greece's betrayal of Serbia opened the road 
 of the Bulgars to Skoplje (Uskiib), there were, at Salonica, 
 not the promised 150,000 allied troops, but 35,000 French 
 and only 13,000 British, the latter under strict injunctions 
 on no account to cross the Greco-Serb frontier. It would 
 be interesting to know whether this order was given with 
 the approval of Sir Edward Grey. Attempts have been 
 made to throw the whole onus of the Serbian disaster upon 
 Greece's defection ; but it is well for us to remember the 
 unpalatable fact that Greece's failure in her Treaty obHga- 
 tions towards Serbia alone saved Britain from the charge 
 of failure to fulfil her pledge to Greece. Nothing can 
 exonerate Greece's desertion of her ally, but in view of our 
 tergiversation and irresolution, some allowance must be 
 made for King Constantine's attitude towards the Entente. 
 
116 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Moreover, if it had been intended to deceive the Serbs and 
 to dislocate their plans of defence, no better method could 
 have been imagined ! For not the least of the enormities 
 for which Sir Edward Grey is responsible has been, that 
 though he and his military advisers were from the first 
 opposed to sending mihtary help to Serbia and blocked it 
 at every turn, they none the less carefully concealed the 
 fact from the Serbian General Stafi, instead of giving them 
 fair warning that help would not be forthcoming. Worse 
 still, they kept urging the Serbs to hold the Danube front at 
 the risk of exposing their flank to Bulgaria's onslaught. 
 
 While Sir Edward Grey remained apparently uncon- 
 scious of his duty towards a small but gallant ally, whom 
 he had persistently excluded from the counsels of the 
 Entente and whose function as a bulwark of British interests 
 in the Middle East he failed to understand, our French 
 alHes showed a growing perception of the issues at stake. 
 Finding himself insufficiently backed up from London, M. 
 Viviani, then still Prime Minister, crossed the Channel 
 shortly before the reconstruction of the French Cabinet ; 
 and one of the objects of his visit was to urge a more 
 vigorous Balkan poHcy. A Httle later M. Millerand, then 
 still Minister of War, crossed upon the same quest, and 
 found it necessary to prolong his stay in order to extract 
 some, albeit ambiguous, promises from our reluctant 
 authorities. As he remarked to an EngHsh friend, he felt 
 he could not return without some guarantee of military 
 support, " otherwise the rupture would have been too 
 grave." But from these promises our Government began 
 at once to 'recede, and within a fortnight General Jofire 
 himself found it necessary to come over to plead the cause 
 of Serbia (October 29th). On his arrival, Sir Edward 
 Grey, throwing to the winds all his public pledges to Serbia, 
 
THE FAILURE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 117 
 
 definitely urged upon the French Generalissimo complete 
 withdrawal from Salonica and the abandonment of the 
 Serbs to their fate. General JofEre rephed with the historic 
 phrase : " Vous nous lachez sur le champ de bataille ! " 
 (" You are deserting us on the field of battle, and we shall 
 have to tell the world ! "). Seldom, if ever, has a British 
 Foreign Secretary exposed himself to so humiliating a 
 retort from the Hps of an ally. But the taunt was effective. 
 General Joffre carried his point, and in the biting phrase 
 of Sir Edward Carson, the Government " decided that 
 what was too late three weeks before was in time three 
 weeks after." But those three weeks, which might have 
 transformed the fortunes of the campaign, had been irre- 
 trievably lost through Sir Edward Grey's lack of a Balkan 
 poHcy. Even then our hesitation continued. Instead of 
 attempting seriously to check the Bulgarian advance in 
 Macedonia and to thwart the long-cherished Austrian de- 
 sign of a port on the Mgeam (which, as things are, would 
 rapidly become a German submarine base), the Government 
 allowed itseK to be beguiled by a plan (if plan it can be 
 called) for the abandonment of Salonica and the Dardanelles 
 and the concentration of a defensive force on the Suez 
 Canal — presumably in order to wait till the Germans had 
 established their hold on Greece and Roumania as well as 
 Bulgaria, reorganised the Turkish army, completed the 
 Bagdad Railway, replenished their own supplies from Asia 
 Minor, and were ready for the invasion of Egypt. On 
 December 3rd the pressure of these craven spirits wrested 
 a decision from the Calais conference in favour of evacua- 
 tion ; but happily the French Cabinet refused to ratify so 
 disastrous a decision, and after a further week of disunion 
 the War Council of the AUies finally overrode Sir Edward 
 Grey. 
 
' ^^■»^f^.'»*■■■ ■ • -- 
 
 118 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Thus for many weeks a strain was put upon the Entente 
 which would have been extremely dangerous but for the 
 chivalrous loyalty of the French and their knowledge that 
 the British nation did not share the pusillanimous views 
 of its Foreign Secretary. In Paris the question was asked 
 on all sides : why Sir Edward Grey, after such repeated 
 fiascoes, did not follow his colleague, M. Delcasse, into 
 retirement ? How intolerable the situation had become, 
 how ruinous to our prestige in the Near East, might be 
 proved up to the hilt by allusions to the fiasco of our 
 Turkish policy in the summer of 1914, to the notorious 
 Goehen incident, and more recently to the situation in 
 Eoumania. But it will suffice to quote the astounding 
 message conveyed late in November by King Constantine 
 to prominent representatives of the Entente, to the effect 
 that the conquest of Serbia renders the Salonica Expedition 
 superfluous and that the " protection " of the Franco- 
 British forces in their retreat into Greek territory can only 
 be guaranteed by Greece in return for an explicit under- 
 taking to re-embark immediately ! This seems to have 
 been a little too much even for Sir Edward Grey to stomach ; 
 but it was, after all, merely the logical outcome of that 
 vacillation and lack of directive to which King Constantine 
 very aptly alluded in his conversation with the Times 
 correspondent {Times, December 7th). M. Gustave Herve 
 wrote in La Guerre Sociale, of December 8th, that after 
 that interview " our Enghsh friends must begin to 
 realise that they are largely responsible for the present 
 attitude of Constantine. Our friends in England do not 
 take sufficient account of our peculiar temperament, so 
 different from theirs. We, in whom the sentiment of 
 honour is more developed than the sentiment of interest, 
 are incapable of entertaining for an instant the idea of 
 
THE FAILUKE OF SIR EDWARD GREY 119 
 
 abandoning the Serbs. We are, perhaps, idiots, but we 
 are made so." 
 
 [The concluding paragraphs were merely written for the 
 needs of the moment, hut it would not he honest to omit them 
 from the present reprint.] 
 
 It is also high time that the British pubhc should awake to 
 the fact that Sir Edward Grey and his mihtary advisers are sowing 
 the seeds of future trouble with France. And here silence is 
 fuU of dangers ; the true and only remedy is free speech. For 
 there can be no question of any quarrel or even of any divergence 
 of view between the French and British peoples at the present 
 jmicture ; all that is needed is to restore French confidence in 
 British leaders, and that can only be done by the choice of leaders 
 qualified to lead. 
 
 Britain is suffering to-day from the fatal habit of cloaking the 
 faults and errors of our leaders, both civil and miHtary, of pooh- 
 poohing serious criticism as mere " whimpering," and pleading 
 that we are doing our best in the best of all possible worlds. 
 That is not the way to win the war. The method at present 
 favoured by a section of the Press is to plaster London with the 
 ill-considered assertion of one of our party leaders that " Germany 
 is beaten." Beaten, forsooth, when her armies have marched 
 LQ triumph from Ypres to Vidin, from Mitau to Prizren ! That 
 savours of the period when officers labelled their luggage to 
 Pretoria, only to arrive there as prisoners — not of the " Black 
 Week" when we set our teeth and laid the moral foundations 
 of our future victory. 
 
 A very common argument against any change at the Foreign 
 Office is that the fall of Sir Edward Grey would greatly encourage 
 the Germans ; and it may be readily admitted that if he were to 
 give place to Lord Haldane or a member of the U.D.C., the enemy 
 would have good cause to rejoice. It is quite true that Sir 
 Edward Grey is regarded by the man in the street in Germany 
 as the arch-conspirator and author of this war ; that is a con- 
 venient dogma which it has suited the German Press Bureau to 
 inculcate. But official Germany has long known that his honest 
 aimlessness and naive obstinacy make him one of their greatest 
 assets, and the Grerman Chancellor was unwise enough to hint 
 this in his recent speech, when he ascribed Germany's Balkan 
 
"SHKS^BWOn 
 
 ISO EUKOiPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 successes in large measure to our mistakes. The fall of Sir 
 Edward Grey, as the result of a demand for a more energetic 
 conduct of the war and for still closer co-operation with our 
 aUies, and the substitution of a man of energy and first-rate 
 ability, would be far the most serious and disconcerting blow 
 which the Germans had yet received. 
 
 The fear of drastic changes is entirely out of place in the 
 middle of a life-and-death struggle such as the present war. 
 No past service, however signal, can atone for the long series of 
 blunders from which we have tried to select the most flagrant. 
 France and Germany and Russia are at present strewn with 
 reputations which this war has wrecked, very often unjustly. 
 Why should we alone adhere to homoeopathic methods ? 
 
WANTED— A FOREIGN POLICY (1917) ^ 
 
 For eleven years oui; foreign policy has been controlled by 
 one man. His tenure of office lias not only been longer 
 than that of any Foreign Secretary since Canning, but it 
 has coincided with the most momentous events of our 
 modern history. During the opening years of this period 
 the Anglo-French Entente and the Anglo-Japanese AlUance 
 were consoHdated, and the long-sought Anglo-Kussian 
 Agreement successfully concluded. Much of the credit for 
 these achievements must rest with the late King Edward, 
 whose pohtical ability may have been exaggerated by 
 uncritical admirers, but who combined an astonishing ^aiV 
 and knowledge of Continental affairs with that even rarer 
 quahty, the magical talent of creating or transforming an 
 atmosphere. With his death our foreign poHcy entered 
 upon a new phase, the most striking and regrettable char- 
 I acteristic of which was, on the one hand, the complete lack 
 of interest in it displayed by the nation as a whole and by 
 its representatives in Parhament, and, on the other hand, 
 the profound secrecy in which our relations with foreign 
 Powers were shrouded. It would be absurd to blame a 
 single man for such a development. Parhament, which 
 indulged in party brawls instead of acting as a trustee of 
 the nation, and the nation itself, which was absorbed in 
 
 ^ From The New Europe, vol. i. No. 9^ December 14, 1916. 
 
 121 
 
122 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 domestic affairs and unduly bent upon its own amusement 
 and enrichment, are at least equally to blame. But the 
 fact remains that in the year preceding the war, parallel 
 with a Balkan pohcy which gravely jeopardised our prestige 
 and sowed the seeds of future trouble, a whole series of secret 
 agreements with Germany were negotiated, such as would 
 have transformed the map of Africa and Western Asia in 
 her favour. We are still very much in the dark as to these 
 treaties ; but the testimony of four prominent students of 
 foreign affairs — Sir Harry Johnston, Mr. Morton Fuller- 
 ton, Count Reventlow, and Herr Paul Rohrbach — enables 
 us to provide the following survey.^ Parallel but dis- 
 tinct negotiations appear to have been carried on between 
 Turkey, on the one hand, and Britain, France, Germany, and 
 Russia, on the other ; between Germany on the one hand, 
 and France and Britain on the other ; and finally between 
 France and Britain. The essential point which underlay 
 all these various agreements was that Germany was re- 
 cognised as " the sole concessionnaire " of the Bagdad 
 Railway, but consented to make its terminus at Basra 
 instead of the coast-line of the Persian Gulf, and to leave 
 Koweit in the British sphere of influence. While France 
 secured concessions for the construction of railways in 
 Syria and even in Armenia, both she and Britain strictly 
 bound themselves to refrain from building any hue which, 
 would compete with the main German line ; and Count 
 Reventlow significantly tells us that the other concessions, 
 though considerable if reckoned in kilometres, were " de- 
 
 ^ " The Political Geography of Africa before and after the War," 
 by Sir Harry Johnston {Geographical Journal, April 1915, with maps). 
 " Problems of Power," \>y W. Morton Fullerton, 3rd (revised) edition, 
 1914, pp. 305-8. " Deutschlands auswartige Politik," by Graf 
 Ernst zu Reventlow (4th revised edition, 1916), pp. 472-3. Paul 
 Rohrbach in Das Ch'ossere Deutschland for August 15, 1914. 
 
WANTED -A FOREIGN POLICY 123 
 
 pendent on the Bagdad railway as the backbone of the 
 whole system of communication." Meanwhile, according to 
 Mr. Morton Fullerton, France acquired control of the ports 
 of Heraclea and Inebali on the Black Sea, and of Jaffa, 
 Haifa, and the Syrian Tripoli on the Mediterranean. Russia 
 secured fresh pledges for the Europeanisation of Armenia, 
 while Britain acquired elective control of the Persian Gulf. 
 So far as Africa is concerned, we learn from Sir Harry 
 Johnston that France was prepared to surrender practi- 
 cally the whole of the French Congo, with the right of pre- 
 emption over the Belgian Congo ; and that Walfisch Bay 
 was to have been ceded to Germany for part of " the Capri vi 
 strip in Zambezia," and the island of Zanzibar in return 
 for the connection between Uganda and Tanganjdka ; 
 while the dormant proposals for the sale of the Portuguese 
 colonies to Germany were revived in a new form which 
 aroused both alarm and dissatisfaction in Paris. The net 
 result of all this would have been to secure for Germany a 
 great Central African Empire, linking the Cameroons by 
 land both with German East and South- West Africa, and 
 in that case the transference of Angola and at least the 
 northern half of Mozambique to Germany woidd have only 
 been a question of time and opportimity. If it be true, as 
 Sir Harry Johnston hints, that aU this was to have been 
 conditional upon " the retrocession of Metz and French- 
 speaking Lorraine," and the " extrusion " of Luxemburg 
 from the German Customs Union in favour of Belgium, it 
 is, of course, impossible without further facts at our disposal 
 to pass a final verdict upon the whole transaction ; but 
 in the Hght of our experience during 28 months of war the 
 grave dangers which it involved are only too apparent. 
 Turkey and Central Africa would have fallen like ripe fruit 
 into the lap of Germany. 
 
124 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 All these efforts towards peaceful demarcation seem at 
 first sight admirable, and may perhaps have been worth 
 trying as a last means of averting disaster. But they were 
 vitiated by a fundamental misconception of Germany's 
 intentions, and by a failure to comprehend her arrogant 
 outlook towards her neighbours. Not merely the German 
 Government or the Prussian ruhng caste, but the average 
 thinking German — as all who came into close contact with 
 our enemies are well aware — was profoundly convinced of 
 the decadence and growing exhaustion of France, and of 
 course still more of the other " inferior " Latin nations. 
 The "boundless corruption" of Russia and her inabiUty 
 to withstand German efficiency either in the military or the 
 economic sphere had become a dogma with most Germans, 
 and provided a common platform for Socialist, Liberal and 
 Junker, for Jewish journalist and Uhlan officer, for com- 
 mercial traveller and Centrum deputy. The fact that this 
 overweening contempt was combined with an instinctive 
 fear of what Russia might and would become when once 
 she had thrown ofi the shackles which bound her giant 
 Hmbs, and set herself in real earnest to putting her house 
 in order, only served to increase the temptation to forestall 
 the day of her reformation and to strike when her strategic 
 railways were stiU unbuilt and her resources still undevel- 
 oped. And parallel with all this depreciation of France, 
 Italy and Russia, though no doubt less widely spread, was 
 the German conviction that Britain too had passed her 
 zenith and was destined ere long to yield up her primacy 
 and her imdue share of the good things of this earth to 
 more vigorous and more highly organised nations. In Ger- 
 many there may have been more friends of Britain and of 
 British ideals than it is to-day the fashion to admit. But 
 there was also a growing number of those with whom power 
 
WANTED— A FOREIGN POLICY 125 
 
 rested, who not merely looked across the Channel with eyes 
 of jealousy and greed, but dreaded closer relations with 
 Britain, as a nation whose habits, training, and outlook 
 upon life were antagonistic to their own, and hkely, if 
 studied too closely, to produce a dissolvent effect upon 
 those old-world institutions upon which their own exist- 
 ence rests. 
 
 Our foreign policy, then, since King Edward's death, has 
 rested upon a complete disregard of foreign psychology, a 
 fundamental misconception of Germany's intentions, and a 
 pathetic desire to placate the tiger with bread and milk. 
 In view of the fact that our Government decided to inter- 
 vene in the war before it was too late, it is not necessary at 
 this juncture to pass in critical review all the acts of omis- 
 sion and commission that marked its conduct during the 
 famous Twelve Days. Besides, too many important points 
 remain obscure to permit a final judgment upon the method 
 as distinguished from the result. What is clear, however, 
 is that the decision to make war was not accompanied by a 
 complete conversion to a warlike frame of mind on the 
 part of the Government as a whole, and particularly on the 
 part of the Foreign Secretary. For a long time his attitude 
 was not merely that of a man who regretted the decision, 
 as a]l such decisions must be regretted in the abstract, but 
 who mourned inwardly over the coUapse of a series of illu- 
 sions which he had entertained for years, which the war 
 had already shown to be illusions, but which he seemed 
 to hope might nevertheless be resumed or revived after a 
 short struggle should have convinced the belligerents of 
 the folly of their course. It was not until shortly before 
 his resignation that the Foreign Secretary seemed really to 
 have felt that the war must be waged whole-heartedly, be- 
 cause its outcome involves not only the existence of the 
 
126 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 British Empire, but the very ideals to which his political 
 Hfe has been devoted. 
 
 The one outstanding feature of AUied and British diplo- 
 macy which our Foreign Office is entitled to recall with 
 unquaHfied satisfaction is the conclusion of the Pact of 
 London. The credit for that act of clear-sighted states- 
 manship has stiU to be allotted. The overwhelming burden 
 of available evidence seems to indicate M. Delcasse as the 
 real author or inspirer of the agreement that none of the 
 AlHes should make a separate peace. But to the credit of 
 all of them it must be said that the suggestion was no 
 sooner made than it was generally accepted. German 
 attempts to circumvent the Pact of London, cunning as 
 they have been, have hitherto utterly failed to achieve their 
 object. Russia appears to have been the subject of the 
 most elaborate of these efforts. The " creation " of the 
 Polish Monarchy, which involved an unpardonable affront 
 to the Tsar, indicates, perhaps, the moment of the failure. 
 Other efforts of the same kind will doubtless be directed 
 towards Italy, France, and even Britain. But every effort 
 is an additional tribute to the soUd wisdom of the step taken 
 on September 5, 1914. 
 
 Yet another soHd achievement of our foreign policy, 
 though it as yet relates to the future rather than the pres- 
 ent, is the agreement by which the Western Allies recognise 
 Russia's right to Constantinople and the Dardanelles, and 
 with it that access to the open sea which geography has 
 hitherto denied her. Our satisfaction at an arrangement 
 which was ahke inevitable and fundamental is tempered 
 by regret at the secrecy of the methods adopted, and the 
 persistence with which that secrecy was maintained. It is 
 quite true that King and Cabinet together represent the 
 nation in war and may claim a latitude, unknown in times 
 
WANTED— A FOREIGN POLICY 127 
 
 of peace, to institute and carry through secret negotiations 
 with friendly and even hostile Powers, but that any indi- 
 vidual Minister should acquire virtual omnipotence over the 
 future destinies of the nation, by arrogating to himself an 
 implicit power of attorney, creates a highly dangerous pre- 
 cedent. Once more we must emphasise the fact that 
 Parliament has been gravely at fault in not exercising its 
 right of control ; but at least equal responsibility must fall 
 upon the Minister who consistently refrained from any 
 attempt to create machinery of any kind such as might 
 facilitate such control without unduly hampering his own 
 powers of discretion. The institution of a Special Com- 
 mittee of Foreign Affairs in the French Chamber points in 
 the direction which must ere long be followed in Britain 
 also. That exactly the same methods cannot be adopted 
 in the two countries is obvious ; but the principle of con- 
 trol, in some form or another, must be asserted, unless 
 democracy is to be declared bankrupt in one of the most 
 vital spheres of politicaj action. The gulf between ParHa- 
 ment — and therefore the country at large — and th§ direc- 
 tion and control of foreign poUcy is one of the most dis- 
 quieting factors in the present situation, and the sooner an 
 attempt is made to bridge it the better. 
 
 How far is it possible to proclaim a national pohcy, 
 couched in specific terms and no longer in vague, if elo- 
 quent, generahties ? Such phrases as the vindication of 
 public law and the rights of smaU nations, or the crushing 
 of German militarism, are far more abstract than they may 
 seem at first sight. Obviously, our first and most essential 
 aim must be to achieve such a victory as will not merely 
 realise our immediate military objective, but also guarantee 
 a lasting peace, based upon the firm foundations of popular 
 will and the legitimate aspirations of all the nations. Our 
 
128 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 influence must be used constantly with our Allies in this 
 
 sense ; and no facts or expedients must be sanctioned by 
 
 our rulers which are manifestly incompatible with such a 
 
 result — even should these expedients seem to promise some 
 
 momentary advantage. Moreover, we must endeavour to 
 
 make the Alliance less and less a residuum of contradictory 
 
 aspirations. If victory is to be achieved, all the aUied 
 
 nations must accept as inevitable, and cheerfully submit to, 
 
 a complete " pooUng " of all their military, diplomatic, and 
 
 economic resources. Much has been done to co-ordinate 
 
 military enterprise, but the theory of the " Single Front " 
 
 is still in its infancy ; and in this respect we have still to 
 
 learn not alone from the Germans, but even from the Turks. 
 
 But this theory must be extended to every branch of life, 
 
 and the requirements, capacity, and powers of resistance 
 
 of each Ally must be carefully weighed. Notably, in 
 
 regard to measures for safe-guarding and regulating the 
 
 food suppliBs of the populations, uniformity of policy and 
 
 purpose is urgently required, whether it be in drastic 
 
 measures against submarine warfare, in further control 
 
 of freights and shipping, in shipbuilding reform, in the 
 
 application of State control to all means of communication, 
 
 or in the adoption of the " ton for ton " policy, or its 
 
 equivalent, as a cardinal point in the Allied programme. 
 
 A diplomacy which has no directive and persists in 
 waiting upon events has sheltered itself behind the proverb 
 which says that it is unwise to divide the bear's skin until 
 the bear has been killed. No one in his senses will venture 
 to challenge this doctrine ; but it is none the less true that 
 the lack of a definite plan is fatal to any enterprise, and it 
 is essential that we should think out beforehand all possible 
 contingencies and realise clearly whither events are leading 
 us, Of course, all such speculation depends upon victory ; 
 
WANTED— A FOREIGN POLICY 129 
 
 since in the event of defeat the sohition of every problem 
 would pass from our control. The will to victory involves 
 a clear knowledge of the lines upon which we desire to see 
 Europe reconstructed and revivified. The supreme test 
 of this will to victory lies in a recognition of the fact that 
 there can be no '' ne^ Europe " unless Austria-Hungary 
 be broken up. The disruption of the Dual Monarchy is 
 not to be regarded as the distribution of territory by con- 
 quest, but as a necessary step towards the institution of a 
 new era in Central Europe, and towards that vindication 
 of the Principle of Nationality which has been so solemnly 
 proclaimed as a cardinal point in the Allied programme. 
 
 The British Cabinet crisis is merely part of an European 
 crisis. In France the press is demanding with growing 
 insistence far-reaching military changes. The practice of 
 holding secret sessions of the Chamber is becoming more 
 firmly established ; and there is general dissatisfaction 
 with the aimlessness and lack of co-ordination which 
 characterise Allied policy. In Russia the late Premier has 
 been driven from office, not merely by his mismanagement 
 of the Roumanian situation, but by the extraordinary 
 confusion which he and his colleagues had introduced into 
 the vital problems of communications and food supplies at 
 home. The astonishing scenes in the Duma, when the 
 Ministers of War and Marine ostentatiously shook hands 
 with an Opposition leader who had violently criticised not 
 merely the Government but the Empress, would only have 
 been possible in a situation where dissatisfaction with 
 governmental methods had reached a dangerous pitch. It 
 was to appease this universal discontent that the new 
 Premier, Mr. Trepov — of course with the full approval of 
 
130 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the Allied Governments — announced the agreement as 
 to the fate of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. In 
 Italy the sense of crisis is less acute, but none the less real, 
 and the recent speech of the Premier, Signor Boselli, regard- 
 ing Italy's Adriatic aims and their recognition on the part 
 of the Allies, is unquestionably due to a similar need for 
 appeasing the nation's growing alarm and dissatisfaction 
 at military failures and diplomatic fiascoes. Meanwhile, 
 even in Germany, there are growing signs that the same 
 process is in operation. Even the nation whose military 
 successes have been so sensational — and so well advertised 
 — is profoundly dissatisfied with the course of events. 
 Those who escape from the vast prison-house of the Central 
 Powers always have the same tale to tell : even the misery 
 and bereavement are felt less than the isolation, the absence 
 of man-power, and the continual strain. Everywhere in 
 Europe new ideas and questionings are stirring. The 
 discontent which in former epochs was directed against 
 this or that institution is now disposed to challenge the 
 ideas which have hitherto formed the very foundations of 
 the social structure. When we describe the prevalent 
 feeling in all countries as volcanic, it is because we have not 
 as yet found a word to fit a situation for which there is no 
 precedent in history. 
 
 Amid all this welter of ideas and conflicting tendencies 
 nothing has been more remarkable than the piecemeal 
 attitude of our statesmen. A policy has been proclaimed 
 in resounding phrases, but no attempt has been made to 
 define their meaning in the work-a-day world of practice. 
 That here and there private engagements have been under- 
 taken which can hardly be reconciled with the general 
 principles laid down was perhaps inevitable ; but there 
 can be no excuse for a fundamental failure to realise the 
 
WANTED— A FOKEIGN POLICY 131 
 
 logical consequences of tlie commitments entered into by 
 our statesmen. Here again the case of Austria-Hungary 
 provides the classical instance of our failure to think out 
 a policy. The New Eiirope, like other advocates of the 
 disruption of Austria-Hungary, has been attacked on the 
 grounds that such a proposal is not merely radical and 
 drastic, but incompatible with the programme of the 
 Entente, and dangerous in its effects upon Europe. And 
 yet what we advocate, so far from being new, is impUed in 
 a whole series of pubHc pledges and private engagements, 
 for which all the Allied Governments are responsible, and 
 most of which are known to, and sanctioned by, the over- 
 whelming body of pubhc opinion in their respective 
 countries. 
 
 The convention which preceded the entry of Italy into 
 the war recognised that country's right to annex the whole, 
 or portions, of three or four of Austria's southern provinces ; 
 and if her national aspirations should be realised, Austria 
 will ipso facto be deprived of her chief commercial port and 
 her principal naval arsenal. While Serbia — largely as the 
 result of bad diplomacy on the part of the Entente — was 
 being overrun by the armies of the Central Powers, Mr. 
 Asquith, speaking in the name of the British Government, 
 and with the approval of our Allies, declared that we 
 should " never sheathe the sword " until Serbia had re- 
 covered " in full measure aU, and more than all, which she 
 has sacrificed." If this phrase has any meaning whatso- 
 ever, Serbia, in the event of our victory, must not merely 
 retain all the territory secured to her by the Treaty of 
 Bucarest, but also acquire at least a portion of the Serbo- 
 Croat territories of Austria-Hungary. Thus, though care- 
 ful to avoid committing us to the doctrine of Southern 
 Slav Unity, the late Premier certainly committed us to a 
 
132 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 furtlier inroad upon the integrity of Austria-Hungary. 
 Again, the entry of Roumania into the war was preceded 
 by a formal recognition on the part of the Entente Powers 
 of her right to annex the Roumanian districts of Hungary, 
 to say nothing of the southern portion of the Austrian 
 province of Bukovina. The realisation of this design 
 could be amply justified on the basis of nationality, but 
 are we to suppose that some of the statesmen who sanctioned 
 it failed to comprehend that it would involve nothing less 
 than the end of the Kingdom of Hungary as at present 
 constituted ? Finally, the Russians have made it abun- 
 dantly clear that they regard Eastern Galicia, Northern 
 Bukovina, and the Ruthene districts of Hungary as " un- 
 redeemed " Russian soil, and Western Galicia as part of 
 that future Poland which they hope to reunite under the 
 sceptre of the Tsar. Thus we find that the British Govern- 
 ment stands committed, in effect, to nothing less than that 
 very disruption of Austria-Hungary which some of its 
 staunchest supporters still refuse to contemplate. Yet it 
 has shown such a rooted aversion to plain-speaking, or such 
 a lack of confidence in its programme and its powers of 
 persuasion, that no steps have been taken to bring this fact 
 home to the general public. Mr. Lloyd George's speech 
 about the " ramshackle Empire " at an early stage in the 
 war stands alone as the solitary pronouncement of any 
 British Minister on the subject of Austria-Hungary. 
 
 This fatal reluctance to think out any policy or project 
 to the end has not merely exercised a numbing effect upon 
 public opinion at home and upon the Government's own 
 powers of decision, but, it must be added, has aroused very 
 serious misgivings , in the minds of our Allies themselves. 
 The fear that British half-measures and the fog which has 
 hitherto surrounded British policy are due to some dark 
 
WANTED— A FOREIGN POLICY 133 
 
 purpose of preserving Austria-Hungary intact, is too real 
 to be ignored with safety, and can only be finally dispelled 
 by a clear and statesman-like pronouncement. 
 
 If the old Europe is to be reorganised and regenerated, if 
 the new Europe is not to remain a mere dream, the Allies 
 must defeat Imperialism in its Prusso- Austrian and Pan- 
 german form, and in so doing stave ofi finally the German 
 Drang nach Osten. The centre of gravity in the war lies in 
 that central zone of small nations which divides the East of 
 Europe from the West, or, to speak in terms of the Alliance, 
 Russia from her western Allies. In this zone, too, lie the 
 stakes, and it is for its control and exploitation that Germany 
 is really fighting. The only alternative to sach control and 
 exploitation is the dismemberment of Turkey and Austria- 
 Hungary. The aggressive designs of Prusso - Germany 
 {Preussen-Deutschland, as Treitschke and his school of 
 historians consistently re-christened the new Germany) aim 
 at the organisation of Central Europe for her own selfish 
 ends, and treat all those peoples which lie on her path as a 
 mere bridge to Asia and Africa, not as units entitled to 
 their own freedom and development. To such a design the 
 Allies must reply with the rival project of Free Central 
 Europe, neither German nor Pangerman, but organised on 
 national lines and free to work out its own salvation. 
 
 The immensity of the war is the measure of the problem 
 with which Europe is faced. Not merely the small nations, 
 but even the greatest, are confronted, thanks to Pangerman 
 Imperiahsm, with a struggle for existence, with a fateful 
 alternative which brooks no half -measures. At the be- 
 ginning of the war there were few who had realised this ; 
 now, after two years of struggle, it is beginning to be felt 
 and understood on all sides. The iron hand of necessity 
 and logic is forcing not merely the diplomatists, but the 
 
134 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 nations as a whole, to face a solution of the greatest of all 
 world-problems. In this world-struggle Britain has been 
 assigned a foremost part and a special responsibility. 
 The war of to-day and the peace of the future may be 
 stated as a British problem ; and it is for us to decide 
 whether the Great Alliance is to continue, and whether we 
 will give our permanent support to the policy whose germ 
 may be traced to the understanding between France and 
 Russia. To-day half-measures in our foreign policy can 
 only lead to incalculable disaster. If the war has forced 
 us to choose between Germany and Russia, between the 
 Teutonic and the Slavonic world, the latest developments 
 of the struggle bring home to us the inexorable need for 
 pushing the choice to its logical conclusion. The old 
 hesitancies of the past, the futile suspicions of Russia which 
 still linger in -certain quarters, but which — let us freely and 
 unreservedly admit it — the late Foreign Secretary did so 
 much to combat, must be banished once and for all. 
 Neither military nor economic prejudices must be allowed 
 to prevail. There must be an end to the Policy of Buridan's 
 Ass. Our alliance with Russia was at first unconscious and 
 experimental — a mere step at random, though prompted by 
 a true instinct. The future of the British Empire, of 
 Europe as a whole, depends upon Britain's conscious 
 determination to choose, and to choose finally, between 
 Germany and Russia. 
 
 The principle of nationality will play a decisive part in 
 any reconstruction of Europe, but even more decisive will 
 be the part of Democracy as a political force. As a result 
 of the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, 
 only one new State — Bohemia — would emerge, and this 
 would only be a reversion to a great historic past. Poland 
 also would recover her lost individuality, this time in unison 
 
WANTED— A FOREIGN POLICY 135 
 
 with Russia. Some States, like Serbia and Roumania, 
 would be enlarged ; others, like Prussia and Hungary, 
 would be curtailed. The dynastic interests of the House 
 of Habsburg would certainly suffer severely ; but only a 
 few reactionaries would venture to sacrifice to a single 
 family the future of many millions of its present subjects. 
 Vienna and Budapest have too long been judged in this 
 country from the standpoint of the superficial tourist, who 
 is impressed by fine architecture and charnoLing manners. 
 To the pohtical student they are known as inveterate 
 haunts of oligarchy and absolutism, none the less flaunting 
 because there are moments of concealment. Indeed, 
 nothing can be more repulsive than the megalomania of a 
 small nation like the Magyar, which, once infected by the 
 imperialist doctrine of Prussia, has of its own free will 
 degraded itself to the position of Berlin's henchman. 
 
 Our political programme is not directed against the 
 German nation, but rather against Prussian aggression and 
 political materialism. We do not demand the destruction 
 of Germany, if only for the excellent reason that a nation 
 of seventy millions cannot be destroyed. The Germans have 
 staked their all upon Brute Force, and must be forced, by 
 their own weapons turned against their own breast, to revert 
 to those humaner doctrines which inspired their greatest 
 men. When they have abandoned the brutal and decadent 
 philosophy of the Superman, the Blonde Beast, and the 
 Herrenvolk, they may, perhaps, find their place once more 
 as equals among equals. The Bismarckian policy of Blood 
 and Iron, with its Machiavellian foundations, has sapped 
 the moral fibres of a great nation and made of them a 
 danger to Europe and to mankind. Germany, if set free 
 from Prussian materialism and lust of conquest, may 
 become once more a useful member of the community of 
 
136 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 nations, and may contribute once more to the constructive 
 political and social work which lies before us all. 
 
 The Allies must not win the war merely to lose the 
 peace. The greatness of this war does not consist in the 
 vast armies thrown into the field, nor in the appalling 
 loss of human life, but rather in the far-reaching evolution 
 which is already altering all political and social values, 
 and will assuredly bring with it changes such as no man 
 living can foresee. In the light of these changes, mere 
 rectifications of political frontiers almost sink into insigni- 
 ficance. An immense task awaits the diplomatists and 
 statesmen of the future Congress of Peace : it will be theirs 
 to mark out the lines of development which humanity 
 should follow in a new era, or to warp that development 
 fatally for all time. The Great War is in itself a hideous 
 revelation of the futility and artificiality of the jDurely 
 diplomatic peaces and compromises of the last century. 
 This time there must be no mere ephemeral revisions of the 
 map, no insincere makeshifts merely calculated to last till 
 an early and more favourable resumption of hostilities, but 
 an organic reform of international relations. At the future 
 Congress history and philosophy must be the handmaids of 
 diplomacy. 
 
THE ALLIES' PROGKAMME 
 (JANUARY 1917)1 
 
 The Allied Note to America is a landmark in the history 
 of the war. It is addressed to the greatest of the neutrals, 
 but its true interest Hes not so much in what it tells America 
 as in what it tells Europe. It would be an exaggeration to 
 assert that this is the first time that the Alhed Governments 
 have told their own peoples what they are fighting for, but 
 it is certainly the first time that they have made any attempt 
 at practical definition of their war aims. Hitherto we have 
 had to rest content with eloquent but vague generalities 
 about the destruction of " Prussian Mihtarism." The Note 
 of January .10 at last provides us with some idea as to how 
 the statesmen of the Entente hope to accomplish that 
 destruction ; and it is not a mere phrase when one of the 
 leading organs of the New York press describes it as "a 
 charter of emancipation." 
 
 If President Wilson's action in inviting the two rival 
 groups to state their terms has been correctly interpreted 
 by his apologists, he may be congratulated upon the result, 
 even if his actual methods were open to misunderstanding. 
 The lofty motives which inspired him are admitted on all 
 sides, but it is felt on this side of the Atlantic that he has 
 been incHned to lay undue stress upon the abstract at the 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. ii. No. 14, January 18, 1917. 
 
 137 
 
138 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 expense of tlie concrete, to concentrate Ms attention upon 
 the ideal of '' international settlements " and a " League of 
 the Nations " and to overlook the need for political revision 
 and readjustment — for the creation of a new Europe — as 
 an essential preliminary to such a league. The President, 
 like many another enthusiast, has his eyes so firmly fixed 
 upon the mountain peak towards which he is pressing, that 
 he fails to. reckon with the intervening ridges which have 
 to be traversed. The AlHed Note is a salutary warning 
 against the futihty of placing the cart before the horse in 
 matters of international politics. A League of European 
 Nations is undoubtedly the goal towards which human 
 effort must be directed ; but it can onlv be achieved as 
 between free nations, each in control of its own destiny and 
 no longer hampered by the arbitrary restraints, whether 
 political or economic, of a rapidly vanishing past. The 
 only possible basis of internationalism is a free, contented 
 and untrammelled nationalism. " That man's the best 
 cosmopolite who loves his native country best," said 
 Tennyson, and true loyalty to Europe presupposes perfect 
 liberty for each man to love, and to live in, his native 
 country without interference from alien rule. It is its 
 frank recognition of this fundamental fact which makes 
 the Allied Note so remarkable. Stripped of all unessentials, 
 the kernel at its heart is the acceptance of the principle that 
 territorial revision must precede international accord. 
 
 After all previous convulsions the main desire of Euro- 
 pean statesmen has been, so far as possible, to get back 
 into the old groove of the status quo, with the minimum of 
 interference with ancient vested interests, dynastic or other. 
 For the first time we find a majority of the states of Europe 
 definitely proclaiming their desire to escape from the old 
 grooves, to base their existence upon new lines — in a word. 
 
THE ALLIES' PROGEAMME 139 
 
 to will a new Europe. This, then, is nothing less than a 
 landmark in the history of the world. " The reorganisa- 
 tion of Europe " ^ is to follow that restoration, compensation 
 and reparation which have long been regarded on all sides 
 as the first axiom of peace. The foundations of this re- 
 organisation are to be three-fold — a respect for nationalities, 
 a recognition of the right of every people, small and great, 
 to free political and economic development, and the estab- 
 lishment of *' territorial conventions and international 
 settlements " as guarantees for the future. 
 
 For over a century past the principle of nationality has 
 been the dominant factor in the political development of 
 Europe ; and yet throughout that whole period it has 
 never been alluded to in any international treaty. At 
 the three great congresses of Vienna, Paris, and Berlin 
 (1815, 1856, 1878) it was consistently flouted and ignored, 
 and the destinies of the nations were decided on other than 
 national grounds. Under the stress of the greatest war in 
 history this vitalising principle has asserted itself, and has 
 been irrevocably adopted mto the programme of the 
 Entente Powers. Thus we already have the certainty 
 that, unless the Entente is crushed or seeks to evade the 
 engagements to which it stands committed, the principle 
 of nationahty will dominate the future congress of peace. 
 
 This would not, of course, in any way mean that political, 
 religious and economic factors would be ignored, but simply 
 that national claims would take precedence. It is super- 
 fluous to point out that race and language can never be 
 made the sole test of nationality, as Belgium and Switzer- 
 land nobly testify. It is also very generally recognised 
 
 ^ We would remind our readers that an article under this very 
 title, " The Reorganisation of Europe," was published in No. 4 of 
 The New Europe, November 9, 1916. 
 
140 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 that there are instances where economic considerations are 
 of paramount importance, and where special provisions are 
 necessary to reconcile the conflicting claims of geography 
 and ethnography. For instance, the question of Constan- 
 tinople can only be solved upon an economic basis, the 
 determining factor being Kussia's outlet to the warm sea, 
 rather than the fate of the last European foothold of the 
 Turks. In the same way Italy is fully entitled, on a basis 
 of nationality, to the possession of Trieste ; but its establish- 
 ment as a free port must be made the absolute condition of 
 any change, since the economic peace of Europe will depend 
 on there being no artificial customs barrier between so 
 important a port and its great commercial hinterland. 
 Yet, again, the future of Poland depends, to a large extent, 
 upon some economic arrangement being reached regarding 
 the lower Vistula ; and unless there is to be permanent 
 friction between Poland and Germany, it is essential that 
 the port of Danzig, while assigned to Poland, should recover 
 its ancient status of a free and autonomous city. 
 
 The Allies then are careful, while adopting nationality 
 as their watchword, to safeguard themselves against its 
 exaggerated interpretation, and to emphasise their deter- 
 mination to respect other no less important factors in 
 modern civilisation. But the implicit distinctions which 
 the Note draws between " Nation " and " State," and its 
 frequent references to " Nationalities " and " Peoples," are 
 of the very greatest importance, as a complete innova- 
 tion upon all previous diplomatic practice. It is worth 
 noting in this connection that President Wilson's N^te also 
 speaks of "weak peoples," while the Allies' reply contains 
 references both to " small peoples " and " smaU states." 
 
 The greatest obstacle to the reorganisation of Europe 
 is the mediaeval practice which bases all territorial settle- 
 
THE ALLIES' PROGRAMME 141 
 
 ment upon military and dynastic reasons or upon narrow 
 caste interests. After twenty years of convulsion, this 
 mediaeval outlook reasserted itself more strongly than ever 
 at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the words of the 
 French historian, M. Debidour, " the diplomatists of 1815 
 took a year to provide Europe with bad laws. It was to 
 take Europe a century to repair the evil which they wrought 
 upon her." To-day we may push this view to its logical 
 conclusion, and maintain that the present war is the direct 
 result of a stubborn refusal on the part of European 
 diplomacy even to try to repair that evil. The AlUes' reply 
 to America would seem to justify us in the hope that after 
 over two years of purposeless groping and exaggerated 
 secretiveness, the statesmen of the Entente have definitely 
 realised the need for breaking with the diplomatic traditions 
 of the past and identifying themselves with those forces of 
 progress to which the nations owe their inspiration. 
 
 It is no mere accident that Germany, Austria-Hungary 
 and Turkey, should be ranged on the same side in the great 
 European struggle. Each stands for the principle of brute 
 force and materiaUsm ; each represents, in varying degree, 
 a negation of popular rights as the controlhng element in 
 the State ; each has obstructed according to its power the 
 growth of international law and the acceptance of arbitra- 
 tion as a substitute for war ; each upholds, with varying 
 efficiency, those false conceptions of nationality which place 
 the " small peoples " at the mercy of the great and assert 
 the right of forcible assimilation. Germany, even when 
 deprived of her unjust control of Alsace and of Posen, will 
 always remain a great national State ; and as surely as 
 France recovered from the madness of the Carmagnole, 
 Germany will regain her sanity in the years that follow her 
 defeat, and, we may hope, will use the national freedom 
 
U2 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 which her enemies will, on principle, leave unimpaired, in 
 order to revert to those ideals which once made German 
 culture the glory, not the disgrace, of Europe. But Austria- 
 Hungary and Turkey are, in their very essence, artificial 
 and a-national, in so far as they are not directly anti- 
 national, and the efforts of those who desire to reconstruct 
 Europe must inevitably be concentrated upon them, as the 
 chief survivals of mediaevalism in the bad sense. 
 
 The New ^Europe, when attacked some weeks ago for 
 advocating the disruption of Austria-Hungary, pointed out 
 that such a poUcy, so far from implying a new departure 
 on the part of the Entente, was " implied in a whole series 
 of public pledges and private engagements for which all 
 the Allied Governments are responsible, and most of which 
 are known to, and sanctioned by, the overwhelming body of 
 public opinion in their respective countries." The entry of 
 Italy, and later of Roumania, into the war was preceded 
 by a clear recognition of the right of those two countries to 
 annex the territorv inhabited by their co-nationals in Austria 
 and in Hungary respectively. The late Prime Minister, in 
 publicly assuring Serbia of the support of the Allies until 
 she has recovered " all and more than all which she has 
 sacrificed," very definitely committed us to a further in- 
 fringement of the territorial integrity of the Dual Monarchy ; 
 while Russian claims upon the greater part of Bukovina and 
 Galicia would, if realised, carry the process of disruption 
 still further. The AlUed Note frankly faces these facts and 
 pushes them to their logical conclusion. After reiterating 
 the obvious demands for the restoration of Belgium, Serbia, 
 and Montenegro, and the evacuation of the invaded terri- 
 tories in France, Russia, and Roumania, they proclaim the 
 need for the reorganisation of Europe on the threefold 
 basis already alluded to, and then proceed to indicate the 
 
THE ALLIES' PROGRAMME 143 
 
 broad lines which this must follow. " The restitution of 
 provinces formerly won from the Allies by force or against 
 the wish of their inhabitants " is a phrase which can only 
 refer to Alsace-Lorraine, and is too obvious to require 
 further comment. '' The ejection of the Ottoman Empire 
 from Europe, as foreign to Western civilisation," represents 
 the adoption of the Gladstone policy of '^ bag and baggage," 
 and the formal recognition of Russia's right to assume the 
 guardianship of the Straits, and to replace the Cross upon 
 the dome of St. Sofia. The other two sections of this 
 paragraph are only susceptible of one logical meaning, but 
 in view of the silence which the leaders of the Entente 
 have preserved on this subject throughout the war, they 
 require more elucidation than ought to be necessary at this 
 stage. 
 
 " The liberation of the Italians, as also of the Slavs, 
 Roumanians, and Czecho-Slovaks, from foreign domina- 
 tion " is only possible as the result of the dismemberment 
 of Austria-Hungary : for its achievement involves the 
 destruction of the German hegemony in Austria and of the 
 infinitely more brutal and unrestrained hegemony of the 
 Magyars in Hungary. The wording of the phrase strongly 
 suggests that the original text was modified at the very 
 last moment : for the " Czecho-Slovaks " are of course 
 " Slavs," and there is therefore a certain redundancy, not 
 to say inaccuracy, in placing the two side by side in a Kst. 
 The reference to the latter of course means that the AlUes 
 desire that Bohemia, after three centuries of national 
 extinction, should recover that independence which the 
 Hussites once defended so gloriously against Europe in 
 arms. The fact, then, that the Czecho-Slovaks are 
 separately mentioned, and that a special paragraph is 
 devoted to the Allied pledges towards Poland, hmits the 
 
144 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 word " Slavs " by a process of elimination to the Southern 
 Slavs — in other words, to the three sister-races of Serbs, 
 Croats, and Slovenes. If, then, words have any meaning, 
 the Allies accept in principle that idea of Southern Slav 
 Unity which Mazzini was the first of the non- Slavs to 
 welcome, and to which the Serbian Government and 
 dynasty have repeatedly and irrevocably committed 
 themselves. 
 
 The paragraph devoted to Poland is at one and the same 
 time a delicate compliment to the Russian Tsar and a re- 
 proof to those who have dared to throw doubt upon Russia's 
 word. The Allies seem to say that the Imperial pledge to 
 erect a free and united Poland out of the ruins of this war 
 is so irrevocable as to render further public guarantees 
 superfluous. But it would be absurd to treat the clause as a 
 reversal of the policy indicated in the joint telegram of Mr. 
 Asquith and M. Briand. The Polish question, as the fount 
 of European woes, concerns all Europe, and nothing can 
 alter its international character. But the Entente as a 
 whole freely recognises that it concerns Russia far more 
 vitally than any other State, and is ready to consider 
 her interests and defer to her wishes to the utmost 
 possible limit compatible with a lasting settlement of a 
 problem which has endangered European peace for over 
 a century. 
 
 The German Chancellor, both before and during the war, 
 has laid stress upon the struggle between Slav and Teuton 
 as the underlying factor in the European situation. The 
 programme of the Allies tacitly acknowledges what the 
 whole course of this war has shown, that Panslavism is not 
 so much political as intellectual, and is indeed rather a 
 tendency than a policy, and, therefore, that it dijBEers 
 essentially from that utterly materialistic conception which 
 
THE ALLIES' PROGRAMME US 
 
 is summed up in the word Pangermanism. The Germans 
 have already realised, for all practical purposes, their pro- 
 gramme of Berlin-Bagdad, as a glance at the war map will 
 at once reveal. The Allies are therefore confronted with 
 the alternative of breaking the chains which Germany has 
 riveted right across Europe and Asia, or of resigning them- 
 selves to a German hegemony on the Continent such as 
 could only end in the assertion of German world-power. 
 The Allied Note rests upon the frank recognition of the 
 fact that the thwarting of Pangermanism and the re- 
 organisation of Europe on a national basis are merely two 
 sides of the same medal. There can be no new Europe if 
 the Slavs and Latins of Central and South-Eastern Europe 
 are left under the military and economic control of Berhn, 
 Vienna, and Budapest. 
 
 Not the least remarkable feature of the Note is the fact 
 that Great Britain has refrained from putting forward any 
 demands on her own behalf. It may perhaps be argued 
 that the final defeat of the Berlin-Bagdad and BerHn-Cairo 
 designs, with their grave menace to our Empire in India 
 and Africa, would in itself be a sufficient reward, and that 
 we should not be justified in annexing territory. The real 
 explanation of this silence is, however, probably to be found 
 in the fact that the settlement outside Europe will depend 
 far less upon Britain herself than upon the self-governing 
 Dominions. It is absolutely essential that Canada, Aus- 
 tralia, New Zealand, and South Africa shall be represented 
 at the Peace Conference, and it is upon them that the fate 
 of most of Germany's colonies will depend. An Imperial 
 Conference has been hastily summoned to discuss those 
 problems which the late Government seems to have been 
 unwilling or afraid to touch ; and upon its decisions at 
 the end of next month our whole attitude to the colonial 
 
 L 
 
146 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 settlement and tlie extent to which we are to insist upon a 
 " ton for ton " policy depend. 
 
 Paragraph X. of the Note emphatically reiDudiates the 
 suggestion that the Allies aim at the '^ extermination and 
 political disappearance of the German peoples." It cannot 
 be too often repeated that a nation of 70 millions " cannot 
 be ejSaced or permanently reduced to impotence," and that 
 our challenge is directed, not against the national unity or 
 legitimate aspirations of the German people, still less against 
 its right to control its political destiny, but against the 
 ruthless exploitation by Germany, for her own political 
 and dynastic aims, of the vast populations of her allies. The 
 proclamation which William 11. has addressed to his people 
 under the first impression of the Allied Note only serves to 
 accentuate still further the radical difference of outlook 
 between the two belligerent groups. His clap-trap phrases 
 about " the crushing of Germany " knd '' the enslavement 
 of the freedom of Europe and the seas," remind us, for all 
 the world, of Tennyson's remark to a theological casuist : 
 " My dear sir, it seems to me that your God is my devil." 
 What the Emperor describes as " this glorious spirit of 
 freedom planted in our brave people's hearts " is to us an 
 arrogant spirit of domination over subject or vassal peoples 
 and a determination to impose German culture upon a 
 reluctant world. What he describes as our " lust for 
 conquest " appears to us a determination to liberate the 
 peoples of Europe from a nightmare as intolerable as that^ 
 which roused his own ancestors against Napoleon. Argu- 
 ment is impossible, for words do not convey the same 
 meaning to the rival groups. If anything were still needed 
 to prove this, it is the letter addressed by the Emperor to 
 the Chancellor on October 31 and now published for the 
 edification of the world. If Burns were alive to-day, we 
 
THE ALLIES' PROGRAMME 147 
 
 should have a new version of " Holy Willie's Prayer." The 
 present generation of Britons can only turn away in disgust 
 from this crowning blasphemy on the part of a monarch 
 who, for almost thirty years, has persistently confused his 
 own position with th^t of the Deity. The world has had 
 more than enough of this " ruler with a conscience," whose 
 shallow brilliancy is the heritage of insane or abnormal 
 ancestors. The crimes of William 11. and his armies have 
 kindled something far more sacred — the conscience of the 
 nations — and we firmly believe that the day will come 
 when this truth will penetrate even the thick crust of 
 materialism in which the German mind is to-day imprisoned. 
 As yet there is no sign of returning sanity, no prospect of 
 renewed intercourse between the people of Germany and 
 the peoples of the Entente ; and, in spite of all that has 
 happened, this is a matter of profound regret. But with 
 Hohenzollernism and its creed there can be no compromise, 
 if there is to be any peace in Europe save' that of sheer 
 exhaustion. 
 
THE PASSING OF THE STATUS QUO 
 
 (JANUARY 1918) 1 
 
 We have already emphasised the urgency of a re-statement 
 of Allied war aims, alike for our own sake and in the interest 
 of our relations with the outer world. The crusading fire 
 which kindled an all-too-self-centred nation's imagination 
 in the summer of 1914 has now burned low ; and, in the 
 words of the Prime Minister, the hour has come for a " cold 
 zeal," no less sustaining, but far harder to achieve. But 
 this " cold zeal " must drive us to the same goal. High 
 principle must be our guide ; and the words of our states- 
 men must ever show that the liberating democratic motive 
 of our original declaration of war is still the paramount 
 feeling. We do not for one moment deny that our own 
 security combined with an unselfish anger to force us into 
 war. Far-sighted men warned the nation that Great 
 Britain would suffer grievous harm in her most vital interests 
 if German aggression were not checked. But it is no less 
 clear to all who lived through that memorable August of 
 1914 that it was the fate of Belgium which alone rallied the 
 country to a policy of war and silenced all opposition. It 
 is the literal truth that the real popular motive was keen 
 resentment at the wrongs inflicted upon a small neighbour. 
 
 ^ From The New Europe, vol. v., No. 64, January 3, 1918. 
 
 148 
 
THE PASSING OF THE STATUS QUO 149 
 
 Cold reflection, however, revealed tlie underlying fact that 
 on the fate of Belgium, and no less of France, depended the 
 national security of Britain. Security was the watchword 
 by which Pitt sustained his countrymen in the long struggle 
 with Napoleon. Security was the motive which inspired 
 the policy of British statesmen throughout the nineteenth 
 century, and notably that famous " scrap of paper," the 
 Treaty of London of 1839, upon which Belgium's inter- 
 national position rested. 
 
 For close upon a century Britain hugged the security 
 which her efforts had won, and congratulated herself upon 
 her splendid isolation. Absorbed in many activities 
 throughout the world, she wellnigh forgot Europe, or at 
 most was conscious only of her immediate neighbours in 
 home waters. But, in the interval, historical processes 
 had slowly but surely dissolved the old aloofness of the 
 nations, and interwoven their destinies by a hundred 
 mechanical and spiritual ties. Events have shown that it 
 is now impossible for Britain, and even for America, to 
 resist the stars in their courses. 
 
 When war came there were many to whom the old cry 
 of security merely meant the maintenance of the comfort- 
 able old order which they had known since childhood and 
 whose natural appeal was .summed up in the phrase heati 
 possidentes. In a word, amid the dire shock administered * 
 to their nervous system their main desire was to revert as 
 soon and as easily as possible to the status quo which Ger- 
 many had so wantonly disturbed. Had the war been short, 
 it is conceivable that but for certain territorial adjust- 
 ments, the old Europe might have returned, and that with^ 
 it materialism, Imperiahsm, and their fellow isms might 
 have acquired a fresh lease of hfe. But the war has dragged 
 on beyond all expectations, and the status quo has been 
 
150 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 blown to pieces as effectually as Ypres or Rheims. The 
 old frontiers of Western Europe might conceivably be 
 restored, but in the east and south-east political landmarks 
 have been effaced by an irresistible flood. The Russia 
 which we have known (or rather, not known) has given 
 place to a number of units of which many of us were hardly 
 conscious. Poland is rising again from her tomb, Finland 
 is free to assert her most uncompromising claims, new 
 national life is stirring in Lithuania, Lettonia, the Ukraine, 
 and the Caucasus. Those who know Roumania and Serbia 
 know only too well that the very foundations of their former 
 existence have been undermined and that they have no 
 choice save between the achievement of their national 
 unity and final political absorption by those who have 
 hitherto held their kinsmen enslaved. In a word, we have 
 already reached a stage at which one half of Europe could 
 not under any conceivable circumstances be restored to 
 even a semblance of the status quo, while in the other half 
 such a restoration would indeed be a semblance, but not a 
 reality. Thus when we assert that the " reorganisation of 
 Europe " is the most essential of all war aims, we are not 
 crying for something remote or unpractical : we are merely 
 insisting that there should be a conscious and determined 
 effort to complete a process which has already reached an 
 advanced stage. Reorganisation of some kind cannot be 
 avoided : do what we will, something entirely new will be 
 evolved from the crucible of war, and the essential question 
 is whether the Western Powers and America are to yield 
 to dynastic and autocratic incantations and to accept their 
 formulas for the future from the alchemists of Berlin and 
 Vienna. National security remains the minimum upon 
 which even the pacifists insist, but events, by overwhelming 
 the status quo, have robbed them of the refuge to which 
 
THE PASSING OF THE STATUS QUO 151 
 
 they would fain resort, and have inevitably made our 
 national security dependent upon a European resettle- 
 ment. 
 
 We are engaged in a war of nations for which there is 
 no precedent in history. Our fate and our interests are 
 intertwined with those of other nations to a degree which 
 could scarcely have been conceived four short years ago, 
 and which proves that we have already entered upon a 
 new era in the history of the world. Those who shrink 
 from a programme which involves the reconstruction and 
 regeneration of Europe as a whole are still thinking in terms 
 of splendid isolation and *' sacred egoism," and are not 
 ready for the wider international outlook without which the 
 idea of a league of nations cannot be achieved in practice. 
 It is a curious irony that many of those who are loudest in 
 their advocacy of a league of nations profess the keenest 
 horror at prolonging the struggle for objects with which 
 their own country is only indirectly concerned. We have 
 heard distinguished statesmen express pious horror at the 
 bare thought that Lancashire lads could be asked to shed 
 their blood for the freedom of Bohemia. We can under- 
 stand the standpoint of those who allow no consideration 
 save the selfish interests of their own nation to weigh with 
 them ; indeed, under the dispensations of the old diplomacy, 
 from Metternich to Kiihlmann, this was the only sound 
 basis of policy. But in the mouths of those whose avowed 
 design it is to create a new political heaven and earth, to 
 institute entirely new diplomatic methods and to establish 
 a close community of nations resting upon freedom and 
 equahty, we entirely fail to understand this repudiation of 
 the only true international doctrine. In any case, the 
 events of the war have abundantly shown that partnerships 
 once assumed cannot lightly be thrown ofi, and that the 
 
152 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 sufferings or gains of one nation react immediately upon 
 the fate of all. 
 
 If in foreign policy the status quo has been effectually 
 dispelled, it is no less true that in home affairs also the 
 status quo has vanished beyond all possibility of return. 
 The labour market has been shaken to its very foundations ; 
 Capital and Labour alike are faced by new and momentous 
 problems. Entirely unforeseen circumstances have driven 
 Trade Unionism into a position from which a return to the 
 old order of things is, for good or ill, impossible. Railways, 
 mines, shipping, have been subjected to State control. 
 Problems of co-operation, distribution, labour-saving, have 
 assumed a new importance. Women's labour has upset 
 many standards. The fate of the invalid and discharged 
 soldier is already affecting the questions of pensions 
 and insurance. The creation of national factories has 
 transformed the whole industrial system. The feeling 
 against profiteering has struck deep root throughout the 
 community. Above all, the fabulous financial charges 
 imposed by the war have revolutionised all standards and 
 converted many pre-war theories and formulas into so 
 much scrap-iron. In every walk of life events have utterly 
 out-distanced human comprehension, and we are left breath- 
 less and blinded as in the glare of an ocean sunrise. 
 
 The period immediately following the war will accentuate 
 all these changes still further. State control of the most 
 drastic kind will be inevitable during demobilisation. 
 Iconoclasm will eclipse all previous records in the economic 
 sphere. Conscription of wealth, already recognised to be 
 the logical consequence of conscription of flesh and blood, 
 may have to be extended even further than we imagine. 
 The war has killed the Party system, cutting clean through 
 all the old lines of cleavage ; and our future rulers — the 
 
THE PASSING OF THE STATUS QUO 153 
 
 men who return from the trenches and who will have 
 earned the right to express their political will — will insist 
 upon an entirely new standard of hving, a far more stringent 
 control of affairs of State and the practical fulfilment of the 
 theory of equal opportunity for all. The working classes 
 are at last coming to realise their vital interest in foreign 
 poUcy, whose neglect or mismanagement they may pay for 
 in the blood of their sons ; and they may be relied upon to 
 demand not merely a reformed diplomacy and an exten- 
 sion of democratic control, but all those educational facilities 
 that alone can give them the knowledge which is the key 
 to that control. 
 
 Thus, on the one hand, the war is raising standards, 
 whetting appetites, testing and challenging what but 
 yesterday seemed unchallengeable, and creating on all sides 
 fresh needs and fresh demands such as only a vastly in- 
 creased expenditure can satisfy, and on the other hand the 
 available margin is shrinking every day. One thing alone 
 can secure the future of all those causes for which the 
 collective name of Social Reform will serve as well, as any 
 other — one thing alone, a drastic Hmitation of arniaments. 
 Any peace which is inconclusive will render such limitation 
 impossible, and would therefore be suicidal from the point 
 of view of internal national security ; for it would destroy 
 all hope of progress save under the guidance of a rigid 
 militarist caste. 
 
 It is idle to* pretend that the impending transformation 
 of society is regarded with anything Hke unanimous feelings. 
 Now that it is obvious that only immediate peace can save 
 the last surviving fragments of the old order, the little 
 group of reactionaries who under various disguises have 
 attached themselves to the two veteran parties in the 
 State, find themselves agreeing in the desire to make peace 
 
154 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 as soon as even tolerable terms seem within reach and in 
 the hope that they may thereby pass into the new order 
 with a minimum of change. The feudal landlords who 
 scent danger to their estates link up with certain radical 
 doctrinaires whose early Victorian shibboleths are power- 
 less before the strong spells of a more revolutionary age. 
 There , are others who will the end, but not the means, 
 because they cannot discern the connection between the 
 two. But the number of those is growing who understand 
 that in the life of nations, as of individuals, there are 
 moments when it is necessary to take our destiny into our 
 own hands and to stake everything upon the result. In 
 1914 we took the risk, not realising how great it was. 
 To-day we are faced by a similar decision. In England, as 
 elsewhere, it is becoming more and more obvious that there 
 are only two parties which really count — those who mean 
 to win the war and those who do not. In other words, 
 those who consciously will a new Europe, and those who 
 are cravenly content with a bankrupt past. 
 
 La Victoire Integrate is the chosen device of those who 
 seek to rescue Europe from an evil past and to set her upon 
 the road that leads to a new and abiding security. Rightly 
 interpreted it means a victory of principle by which every 
 people on this distracted continent may acquire a new lease 
 of life and liberty securely guaranteed against misrule and 
 war alike. To-day, as we pass from the old year to the 
 new, we may ask whether the victory we desire is in sight. 
 If we judge this matter solely on military grounds, we must 
 admit that, for the moment, the outlook is not clear : the 
 events of last autumn seem to have dimmed our prospect. 
 But military grounds are not the sole nor the main factor 
 in our calculation. The influence of political ideas plays 
 a larger part : and, provided we face the future with that 
 
THE PASSING OF THE STATUS QUO 155 
 
 confidence which finds full justification in our resources, 
 the triumph of our principles is assured. The proviso is 
 important, for the effect of events in Italy and in Russia 
 has been to suggest to certain minds that a compromise is 
 the only way out. Such a suggestion is at once the effect 
 and the cause of lack of confidence ; but mature reflection 
 will prove that if we were to accept the terms of the Central 
 Powers at present we should achieve neither security nor 
 peace. The negotiations at Brest have shown that Berlin 
 and Vienna are prepared to welcome '' self-determination " 
 for all the Russian peoples, while denying it to their own : 
 and since this principle is to-day the true test of the good 
 European, its acceptance by all the belligerents must be 
 laid down as the first foundation of peace. Until Herr von 
 Kiihlmann and Count Czernin subscribe to it, not merely 
 by the hp- service of the Brest-Litovsk parleys, but by 
 honestly reorganising Central Europe upon it, there can be 
 no agreement between us and them. 
 
 It is because we are firmly . convinced of this essential 
 factor in European reconstruction that we lay such emphasis 
 on nationahty. Our belief in racial freedom, whether in a 
 liberal confederation of self-governing peoples or in the 
 absolute independence of each, is no fetish. It is an historic 
 truth driven home to our minds by the experience of the 
 British Commonwealth. We hope that our Government, 
 and the Governments of our Alhes, realise that we are 
 to-day in the presence of one of those great spiritual move- 
 ments which create and recreate whole peoples, for only by 
 reahsing it can they guide us aright out of the chaos into a 
 new order. The common people in every land is awake to 
 the issue. The Labour Party of Great Britain, for instance, 
 has recently shown that the working-man grasps firmly the 
 fundamental principles now at stake : and the BolSeviks 
 
156 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 themselves have pushed some of them into the forefront of 
 discussion in their negotiations, though they have shown a 
 strange reluctance to insist upon the same rights for other 
 peoples in Europe which they demand for themselves. It 
 is too early to say whether Russia has compromised the 
 future of the other Slavonic peoples or not, but we suspect 
 that they have fallen a prey to the craft of Herr von Kiihl- 
 mann and have thus given Prussian power a new lease of 
 life for 1918. Be that as it may, the stars in their courses 
 fight against the Prussian idea. The success of German 
 arms in Italy conceals from no one the broad fact that the 
 year 1917 has witnessed a large advance of democratic 
 thought all over the world, and that the year 1918 promises 
 to give us that triumph of principle which we have called 
 la victoire integrale. 
 
PLAYING WITH AUSTRIA ^ 
 
 While in each of the two belligerent groups the Govern- 
 ments still cHng desperately to the discredited methods of 
 the old Diplomacy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to 
 maintain that secrecy which is so essential a part of the 
 system. Even before the present war the revelations which 
 followed the Balkan wars had made it evident that a new 
 era was dawning in diplomatic history and procedure ; 
 and they have long since been thrown into the shade by 
 the far more sensational revelations of the great war itself. 
 But while this applies even to the most jealously guarded 
 state documents, it applies no less to secret negotiations 
 and even to surreptitious meetings between statesmen. 
 A recent example of this is the fact that the encounter be- 
 tween General Smuts and Count Mensdorff, the late Austro- 
 Hungarian Ambassador in London, became known to the 
 general public within a few weeks of its actually taking 
 place in Switzerland, and that it has proved equally impos- 
 sible to conceal the resumption of the intrigue early in 
 March. 
 
 If on the Entente side it was merely intended to engage 
 upon informal discussions with a view to obtaining a clue 
 to the inward mentahty of the enemy, we should not be 
 justified in condemning the step without further enquiry. 
 
 ' From The New Europe, vol. vi. No. 75, March 21, 1918. 
 
 157 • 
 
158 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 But rumour Has credited the Entente representative with 
 accepting as a basis of discussion conditions such as would 
 not only render any reconstruction of Europe impossible, 
 but would strike at the root of existing engagements, and 
 even with offering to one of our enemies territorial con- 
 cessions such as could not be reconciled with the principles 
 so solemnly proclaimed by Entente statesmen. We there- 
 fore cannot help feeling that Lord Curzon, instead of con- 
 temptuously dismissing Lord Willoughby de Broke 's very 
 natural enquiry in the House of Lords, would have done 
 well to reassure the nation by a formal refutation of such 
 very persistent and concrete reports. Lord Curzon might, 
 it is true, have had to face the question why the Foreign 
 Office — always assuming that it was consulted in the 
 matter, which is not a small assumption in these strange 
 times 1 — selected as its emissary a man whose high qualities 
 are universally recognised, but who has only the most 
 elementary knowledge of the country whose trained diplo- 
 matic representatives he was to meet. This is the more 
 regrettable, since there is no European country which con- 
 tains so many pitfalls for the amateur diplomatist as 
 Austria-Hungary. Not only are its political problems far 
 more numerous and far more complex than those of its 
 neighbours, but they have gradually become obscured and 
 complicated by a political terminology which cannot be 
 learned in a day. Words have not the same value nor 
 ideas the same content in Austria or in Hungary as farther 
 west ; and only personal experience can supply the key. 
 Count Mensdorff is no genius, but any one who negotiates 
 with him is at a hopeless disadvantage unless he has at 
 
 ^ It v/as soon to transpire that the mission was carefully concealed 
 from the Foreign Office and arranged by the Prime Minister and his 
 secretariat. 
 
PLAYING WITH AUSTKIA 159 
 
 least a working knowledge of the internal conditions in 
 the Dual Monarchy, and their essential bearing upon its 
 relations with neighbouring countries in each of the two 
 warring groups. 
 
 In its Austrian policy the Entente is faced by one of two 
 alternatives, and any approach must be made in one of two 
 directions : towards those who actually control the destinies 
 of the two states, or towards those nations or national 
 groups which desire to emancipate themselves from their 
 present yoke — ^in other words, towards the faithful allies of 
 our principal enemy, Germany, ,or towards his openly 
 declared opponents among the subjects of his chief ally, 
 Austria, Until we make this fundamental choice we are 
 only toying with the subject, and negotiations conducted 
 by persons whose mind is irresolute and who are still 
 balancing the rival advantages not merely oSer no serious 
 prospect of success, but are calculated to do grave injury 
 to the Allied cause. 
 
 Many arguments can be adduced to prove that even if 
 the young Emperor seriously desired to reconstruct his 
 dominions on a genuine federal basis, not one of those factors 
 upon which the existence of the State has hitherto rested — 
 the aristocracy, the army, the Church, the bureaucracy, 
 the German bourgeoisie, and the Magyars — could be relied 
 upon to support him in such a policy. If this contention 
 be true — and we believe it to be unanswerable — then it 
 follows that the Entente can only come to terms, with the 
 ruling powers in Austria-Hungary on conditions whijch 
 involve acceptance of the territorial status quo and a nega- 
 tion of the principle of nationality. 
 
 Under such circumstances the only effect of proposals 
 from our side (and this holds good even if, as seems prob- 
 able, the first overture came from bankrupt Vienna) must 
 
IBO EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 inevitably be to convince Austrian statesmen that all the 
 public professions of the Entente during the past three 
 years are mere hypocritical phrases. It has probably 
 encouraged them to believe that our situation is far less 
 favourable than we would have the outside world believe, 
 and must in any case have betrayed the fact that in 1918, 
 as in 1914, British statesmen have little or no grasp of the 
 fundamental facts of the Austrian situation, and conse- 
 quently of Central European policy. Moreover, the more 
 uncertain the basis of discussion, the better the opportunity 
 for Vienna, on the one hand, to prove its loyalty to Berlin 
 by promptly handing on the information, and on the other, 
 to discourage the various Slav elements in Austria which 
 rely upon the Entente, by demonstrating to them how 
 little ground they have for such reliance. 
 
 The idea of a separate peace with Austria-Hungary is a 
 fatal illusion. The Germans of the Empire are, it is quite 
 true, cordially detested throughout Austria and Hungary — 
 by the Austrian Germans and the Magyars, no less than by 
 the Slavs. It is even safe to speak of acute friction in their 
 personal and social relations. But this does not affect the 
 Alliance, for the very simple reason that the more Vienna 
 and Budapest find themselves dependent upon Berlin, the 
 more obvious it becomes to them that only Berlin can save 
 the German hegemony in Austria and the Magyar hege- 
 mony in Hungary. During the war Austria-Hungary has 
 cracked no less than six times ; and each time it has only 
 been saved from disaster and disintegration by German 
 military intervention. To-day it is only the German Army 
 which stands between Austria-Hungary and complete 
 collapse ; and in a certain sense it is a mere unlucky accident 
 that Russia has collapsed first. 
 
 Austria-Hungary's dependence upon Germany is not 
 
PLAYING WITH AUSTRIA 161 
 
 merely political, but above all military. For a long time it 
 has been obvious that as the result of a very definite policy 
 from Berlin the Austro-Hungarian and German armies are 
 inextricably dovetailed into each other — just as inside the 
 former the various racial units have been set to watch and 
 counteract each other, and even individual regiments have 
 been blended racially for purposes of more effective control. 
 Indeed, Germany had special reasons of her own for ex- 
 tending her military influence, through the autumn offensive 
 against Italy, on the one front from which it had hitherto 
 been excluded. 
 
 But, quite apart from this conclusive military reason, 
 there are strong financial and economic factors which mili- 
 tate against all idea of a separate peace. Austria-Hungary 
 is virtually bankrupt, its gold reserve has almost vanished, 
 and it is tied hand and foot by financial commitments to 
 the big BerUn banks. The financial prosperity of Vienna 
 and Budapest has been artificially puffed beyond its natural 
 limits at the expense of the subject nationaHties, and would 
 suffer from any restoration of the balance in favour of, say, 
 Prague or Agram. The big Jewish banking interests of 
 both capitals are hopelessly anti-Slav and hopelessly tied 
 up with the old poHtical order, with the German aUiance, and 
 with the trade and finance which follow the German flag. 
 Meanwhile the press of Vienna and Budapest, which was 
 always more or less controlled by the various industrial 
 cartels and trusts, has during the war fallen to an alarming 
 degree under the influence of the Berlin banks and the West- 
 phalian armament firms, with disastrous effects upon what 
 is the Austrian equivalent of public opinion. 
 
 The young emperoi: and his entourage undoubtedly re- 
 sent their dependence upon Berlin and the Hohenzollern. 
 Even the Austrian miUtary chiefs have had enough of the 
 
 . M 
 
162 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 game, and are disturbed at the decline of discipline and the 
 spread of subversive revolutionary ideas from Kussia. But 
 there is no serious evidence that they really contemplate 
 a separate peace or regard it as practicable. On the con- 
 trary, everything goes to suggest that they regard separate 
 negotiations as a mere trap to ensnare the unwary and 
 commit the Entente to " negotiations all round." More- 
 over, however low our opinion of the Habsburgs may be, 
 we are not entitled to believe them to be capable of such 
 unparalleled treachery towards an ally as their abandon- 
 ment of Germany under present circumstances would 
 involve. The Habsburgs have displayed on more than 
 one occasion the basest ingratitude and intolerance and 
 have exploited without scruple the devotion of their ad- 
 herents or their allies. \ But they are not dead to all sense 
 of noblesse oblige and cannot be treated Hke Oriental des- 
 peradoes of the stamp of Talaat and Enver. Moreover, as 
 , the world is constituted to-day, their betrayal of Germany 
 would bring down the whole fabric of the already tottering 
 dynastic principle about their ears, and they are too essen- 
 tially dynasts not to reahse this to the full. Finally, mere 
 common sense must warn them that if the impossible could 
 be accompHshed and the alHance with Germany could be 
 repudiated, BerHn's prompt answer would be the occupa- 
 tion of Prague and Cracow. In short, we are driven back 
 to the conclusion that in making overtures to the Entente, 
 Vienna has been simply laying a trap, designed to compro- 
 mise us in the eyes of our friends and to provide Berlin 
 with the means of testing our spirit and moral. 
 
 The persistence of the Austrian intrigue in Western 
 Europe is a curious phenomenon which it would not be 
 difficult to trace to certain definite sources — social, finan- 
 cial, international, ecclesiastical, defaitiste — often mutually 
 
PLAYING WITH AUSTRIA 163 
 
 antagonistic, sometimes strangely intertwined. But if we 
 exclude those who are manifestly either tools or dupes, we 
 shall find that those who are actively working for the pre- 
 servation of Austria are invariably — ^however divergent their 
 spheres of action may be — at heart reactionaries and ad- 
 herents of the old order. On the Austrian side are arrayed 
 the dynastic principle (which is poles apart from the British 
 conception of Hmited monarchy), the conception of a heredi- 
 tary military caste bound by no ties save loyalty to the 
 Imperial House, the cults of ascendancy and racial hege- 
 mony, the fear of a sluggish and unreformed Church for 
 changes which must affect its inordinate temporal riches, 
 the alarm of a nerveless aristocracy at the growing land- 
 hunger of the peasantry, the infinite blocking capacity of 
 a bureaucracy which is impervious to the ferment of nation- 
 ality around it and owes its influence to a genius for petty 
 espionage and to its skill in erecting " Divide et Impera " 
 into a complete system of government. Behind all this 
 stand the cryptic figures of international finance and the 
 landed interest, urging a cessation of the struggle while each 
 can still hope to maintain some remnant of its old power. 
 
 These intrigues will not succeed ; events are far too 
 strong, far too inexorable. But they sap the moral of the 
 nations, undermine confidence between alHes, and drive us 
 to despair of the irresponsible levity and cynicism with 
 which we are governed. What, then, is the poHcy of the 
 War Cabinet? Are those whom we regarded as real " war 
 minds " — men like Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Milner, General 
 Smuts — ^losing their nerve and preparing secretly for a 
 patched-up peace ? We could have peace to-morrow with 
 Germany, but only on the basis of aso. unholy bargain 
 between two Imperialistic policies. Africa and the Arab 
 world might be bartered for Central and Eastern Europe, 
 
164 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and Germany would transfer her colonising and Germanising 
 designs to the scene of her mediaeval triumphs. The status 
 quo would thus be accepted for the territory of our enemies 
 and reversed for the territory of our friends. We do not 
 deny that "enquiries" must take place before the true 
 negotiations for peace can begin. But, to judge from the 
 statement issued by the Allied Premiers after the recent 
 London Conference, the time is not ripe either for the 
 " enquiries " or for the negotiations themselves. And if 
 simultaneously with declarations of that kind this hole- 
 and-corner diplomacy continues the Western Alliance may 
 begin to crumble. If General Smuts visits Count Mensdorff, 
 why should not Signor Tittoni meet Prince Billow, or Mr. 
 Pasic parley with Dr. Baernreither, or Mr. Politis with 
 Mr. Gesov ? Why should not France even send M. Briand 
 to accept the very favourable offer which Germany is 
 alleged to have made in the present month ? Why not, 
 indeed : except that a general sauve qui peut cannot lead 
 to peace and security. Whatever governments may think 
 or do, the democratic peoples of the West are not prepared 
 to sell their birthright for an empty peace which gives no 
 security. 
 
THE END OF AN ILLUSION ^ 
 
 The subterranean intrigue with Austria upon which certain 
 Entente statesmen had rashly engaged, and against which 
 we have so often had occasion to protest, has at last ended 
 in the inevitable fiasco. The revelations of M. Clemenceau 
 have roughly torn away the veil, and displayed the dupes 
 and the tools in various stages of deshabille. Some of those 
 whose illusions are shattered and whose reputation for 
 poUtical sagacity is threatened are left vainly seeking for 
 excuses for their past action or lamenting the thoroughness 
 with which the invisible wires have been destroyed. But 
 the French Premier, unhke most of his colleagues among 
 the statesmen of the Entente, has some personal knowledge 
 o£ Austria ; and it was a sure instinct that led him to 
 revert to hard reaUties. Already the wits of Paris are say- 
 ing that, being no longer able to overthrow Ministers in 
 France itself, the Tiger has transferred his energies to 
 enemy countries. 
 
 Some time may still elapse before we can hope to gauge 
 the full effect produced by the publication of the Im- 
 perial letter upon the internal situation in the Monarchy; 
 but it is already obvious that, following closely upon 
 the Lichnowsky-Miihlon-Jagow revelations and coinciding 
 with the Koman Congress of oppressed nationahties, it has 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. vii. No. 81, May 2, 1918. 
 
 165 
 
166 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 profoundly shaken public confidence throughout Austria- 
 Hungary. It is not merely Prince Sixtus of Parma and his 
 sister the Empress Zita who are placed in an extremely 
 difficult situation : the young Emperor and the Habsburg 
 dynasty itself are gravely compromised. 
 
 Attempts are, of course, being made to represent Charles 
 as having from the first acted in strict collusion with BerUn, 
 and with the object of involving the Entente in negotia- 
 tions of a general character, such as would inevitably have 
 placed Germany in an advantageous tactical position. 
 But the real significance of Charles's overture lies in the 
 fact that he was probably acting behind the back of his 
 ally — doubtless salving his conscience with the hope that 
 he might pave the way for general discussion, but quite 
 definitely resolved to see what he could obtain by his own 
 separate initiative. His whole attitude was that of a 
 young colt still unaccustomed to harness. The letter was 
 written on March 31, 1917 ; and it is to be remembered 
 that ever since his accession, barely five months earlier, he 
 had been engaged in dismissing the men who had enjoyed 
 his granduncle's confidence, and surrounding himself, alike 
 socially and politically, with others who had belonged to 
 the circle of the murdered Archduke. Even the all-powerful 
 Tisza saw his position tottering. Those " Old Austrian " 
 sentiments, which have always been a distinguishing feature 
 of the Austrian feudal aristocracy, reasserted themselves 
 for a brief moment, and rallied a small but socially influential 
 group, of whom the chiefs were Czernin and Clam-Martinic, 
 round an ignorant young man of petulant will, who resented 
 the position of vassalage in which he found himself towards 
 his tactless patron, WiUiam II. 
 
 The chief error of foreign opinion has been in crediting 
 Charles and his advisers with brains and a clear programme. 
 
THE END OF AN ILLUSION 167 
 
 In reality, they are all men of mediocre intelligence and 
 confused thought, still dreaming of the days of Prince 
 Eugene and Laudon, and utterly incapable of any con- 
 structive efiort. The letter was written at a moment 
 when Germany's insistence on the submarine campaign 
 was resented in Austria as calculated to prolong the war by 
 stiQ further embittering feehng, and, above all, by involving 
 America ; while the Kussian Revolution, then in its initial 
 stages, was causing intense alarm in Vienna and Budapest, 
 which well remembered the reflex action of previous Russian 
 movements upon the Dual Monarchy. Thus Charles, in 
 acting as he did, was inspired by that instinct of self- 
 preservation which has, perhaps, been a more marked 
 characteristic in the House of Habsburg than in any other 
 European dynasty. It would be churhshly unjust to deny 
 to him and his wife that longing for the restoration of peace 
 which fills more and more the heart of the veriest " die- 
 hard " in every coimtry. But beyond all question his 
 dominant motive was fear — deadly fear for the Imperial 
 House and for the ruling classes, when the dire results of 
 their moral and poHtical bankruptcy should force them- 
 selves upon the attention of a world no longer mobilised. 
 Fear and inexperience combined to make him forget that 
 he was between the traces, and that a practised driver was 
 on the box ; since then he has learnt by repeated experience 
 the uses of bit, reins, and whip. 
 
 The censors of the Central Powers have taken care that 
 excuses should be made for the young Emperor's action, 
 but nothing can allay the suspicion into which the general 
 pubhc has been plunged. The Hne adopted by the Vienna 
 correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung is especially 
 significant. *' The error," he tells us, " took place at a 
 time when a young and impulsive monarch, under the 
 
168 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 pressure of altogether exceptional circumstances, might 
 have beheved that by his own private initiative he could 
 do the whole world a service, and did not fully recognise 
 the great effect of such a step, both as regards the enemy 
 and his ally." But the public, and in particular the German 
 pubhc, is intended to read between the lines of the intention 
 of Charles to emancipate himself from German dictation. 
 The completeness of his failure has been rendered all the 
 more obvious by the pubhcation of the letter at the very 
 moment when Vienna's utter dependence upon Berhn had 
 become notorious even to the blindest of Austrophils. 
 
 Charles was already in the toils ; henceforth the fact 
 was no longer to be concealed. There is reason to believe 
 that Count Czernin's famous speech of last December, in 
 which he established an exact parallel between Strassburg 
 and Trieste, was delivered in direct defiance of the wishes 
 of Charles and after consultation between the Foreign 
 Minister and German G.H.Q. Moreover, that the advocates 
 of a German alliance a outrance were already in possession 
 of compromising facts concerning the Emperor was obvious 
 from the frontal attack of Dr. Fried] ung upon Professor 
 Lammasch, the distinguished jurist who has long been 
 known to possess Charles's confidence. Fried Jung's refer- 
 ence to the memorandum in which Lammasch recommended 
 a dissolution of the German alliance as a step towards 
 reconcihation with the West, was worded in such a way 
 as to make it obvious that there was much more behind ; 
 indeed, it is notorious that some such scheme commands 
 favour in court circles, though there is a complete absence 
 alike of men and machinery by which it could be translated 
 into practice. When, then, M. Clemenceau launched his 
 high explosive, WiUiam II., with his habitual tact, decided 
 upon the pubhc humiliation of Charles, and demanded 
 
THE END OF AN ILLUSION 169 
 
 from him telegrams repudiating the French Premier's 
 charges and affirming the Dual Monarchy's entire solidarity 
 with Germany. The text of this pronouncement was actu- 
 ally brought from German G.H.Q. by an officer of the 
 General Stafi and presented to Charles for signature, just 
 as the cold soup of yesterday's supper is placed before a 
 naughty child. Of the contents of the letter to Prince 
 Sixtus, with its famous reference to " the just claims " of 
 France to Alsace-Lorraine, Httle need be said. The special 
 stress laid upon Belgium is explained by the position of 
 Prince Sixtus as an officer in the Belgian Army and by the 
 peculiar outlook of the Habsburgs, who remember Belgium 
 as a former possession of their House. The proposal with 
 regard to Serbia is milder in tone than any previous Aus- 
 trian reference, but to every Serb it is the equivalent of the 
 final renunciation of his national aspirations ; and Charles 
 cannot have been so simple as not to reahse that for the 
 Entente to have accepted such a basis for discussion would 
 have been regarded by Serbia as a cruel betrayal and might 
 thus prepare the way for direct negotiations between 
 Vienna and Corfu. But the key to the whole document, as 
 the Corner e delta Sera and other leading organs of Itahan 
 opinion have not been slow to recognise, was its absolute 
 silence with regard to Italy. Applying to foreign pohcy 
 that principle of " Divide et Impera " on which Habsburg 
 rule has rested for centuries past, Charles virtually offered 
 to betray Germany, if France in her turn abandoned Italy. 
 Hence the heads of the British, French, and Italian Govern- 
 ments, who are known to have given the overture very 
 careful consideration and who presumably also consulted 
 President Wilson (then on the very point of intervening in 
 the war), were absolutely right in concluding that it offered 
 no basis for serious negotiation. For even on the assump- 
 
170 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 tion — an assumption which we have more than once shown 
 to be entirely fallacious — that Austria-Hungary was in a 
 position to break away from her masterful partner, it was 
 even at that date obvious that the most which the Western 
 Powers could hope to obtain was a tolerable settlement on 
 the Western front and outside Europe, at the expense of 
 their alHes in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Eussia, 
 Roumania, Serbia, and Italy would have had to pay the 
 bill of victorious Germany. Fortunately honour and in- 
 terest alike forbade the Western Powers from perpetrating 
 an act of treachery not unhke that contemplated by the 
 Tsarist Government on the eve of its overthrow. They 
 realise what some of our sentimentalists still seem unable 
 to grasp — that though it is historically true that we only 
 entered the war to save Belgium and France, subsequent 
 events have produced a situation in which the fate of 
 Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Balkans are no less vital 
 matters for the future peace and security of Europe and 
 the world at large. There is nothing inconsistent in the 
 triple assumption that Charles was very much in earnest, 
 that those who inspired him (for the letter bears all the 
 traces of having been composed with the help of a practised 
 diplomatist) were aiming above all at producing discord 
 in the Allied ranks, and that the whole project was from 
 the very first moment foredoomed to failure. 
 
 There is something dehghtfully humorous in the charges 
 of forgery levelled against M. Clemenceau and the French 
 Government by Austrian official circles. Foremost in its 
 support of this thesis is the Clerical ReicJispost, whose 
 editor, Dr. Funder, as joint defendant in the notorious 
 Fried jung trial in 1909, was proved to have accepted 
 wholesale from the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office the 
 forged " documents " which were to provide an excuse for 
 
THE END OF AN ILLUSION 171 
 
 overrunning Serbia and crushing Jugoslav nationalism 
 inside the Monarchy itself. Foreign opinion has a short 
 memory, or no Austrian would ever dare, after the ex- 
 posure of the Agram and Fried jung affairs, to breathe the 
 word " forgery " in connection with a political document. 
 
 After an interval of some months, Austria-Hungary 
 resumed, through various channels, her overtures to the 
 Entente. This time there was a double motive at work — 
 on the one hand, the desperate internal situation of the 
 Dual Monarchy, which already threatened the State with 
 political upheaval, economic disaster, and the physical ruin 
 of the population ; on the other hand, the need for paralys- 
 ing, so far as possible, any offensive, whether miUtary or 
 pohtical, which the Entente might be disposed to launch 
 against the Monarchy. This time the channels employed 
 were those cosmopoHtan aristocratic circles which are 
 abnost equaUy connected with all the belligerents. On the 
 one side was a personal friend of the Emperor Charles, 
 Count Eevertera, an Austrian of ItaHan origin ; on the 
 other, an elderly French aristocrat, Count Armand, whose 
 conservative and clerical tendencies rendered him soHcitous 
 for the welfare of the Habsburgs, and who, though com- 
 pletely ignorant of Austria and its political conditions, 
 vaguely fancied that he had detected a common interest 
 between France and Austria, based upon memories of the 
 ancien regime. The meetings between these two persons 
 took place at Freiburg in Switzerland, in the house of Rever- 
 tera's mother-in-law. Princess Aldobrandini-Sarsina, nee 
 La Rochefoucauld. Their significance lay in the fact that 
 Armand belonged to the Intelligence Bureau of the French 
 War Office, and was being employed, behind the back of 
 the Quai d'Orsay, by a group of Austrophils entrenched in 
 high mihtary and political positions. There is, in all this, 
 
172 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 a highly piquant analogy to the mission of General Smuts 
 and subsequent English emissaries, who appear to have 
 acted behind the back of the British Foreign Office. In 
 France it is already being alleged that M. Poincare and those 
 military chiefs who used Armand as their tool, infringed 
 the French Constitution by their cryptic methods ; and it 
 is doubtful whether Mr. Lloyd George's methods of conduct- 
 ing foreign policy commend themselves to our constitutional 
 lawyers. Certain it is that the connection between the two 
 sets of overtures would well repay further enquiry, since 
 this could hardly fail to 'reveal widely divergent aims 
 among the various Austrophil cHques. The SociaUst, the 
 financier, the defaitiste, the aristocrat, the Jesuit, each 
 contributes his quota ; but their respective values in the 
 compHcated interplay of forces are increasingly difficult to 
 estimate. 
 
 One of the most skilful operators in this network of 
 intrigue was Baron Oskar von Montlong, the Austro- 
 Hungarian Consul-General at Geneva, who has exploited to 
 the full his French origin and connections, and has estab- 
 hshed an elaborate Austrian espionage bureau, whose 
 special task it is to watch the activities of the various 
 national committees in Switzerland. As the former 
 " Press-chef " at the Vienna Foreign Office, he has great 
 experience in the corruption of the press and of individuals, 
 and he has had the good fortune to rediscover in Switzer- 
 land more than one foreign journalist whom he had formerly 
 got to know at the Ballplatz.. ' His press work is ably 
 assisted by Dr. Szemere, of the Neues Pester Journal, Mr. 
 Valyi of the Revue Politique Internationale^ Mr. HoUo, 
 former editor of Count Karolyi's organ, Magyarorszdg , and 
 the Clerical deputy, Mr. Huszar. The constant endeavour 
 of Montlong and his group has been to reach and influence 
 
THE END OF AN ILLUSION 173 
 
 French political opinion through many roundabout channels, 
 and, as far as possible, to permeate the local Swiss press 
 with Austrophil sentiments. Even the Journal de Genhve 
 has not remained unaffected by the atmosphere, thus 
 subtly created, and, while remaining consistently Franco-^ 
 phil, has, from time to time, relapsed into language such as 
 seemed to betray the influence of Vienna. 
 
 There is yet another element in all this Swiss intrigue. 
 The General of the Jesuits, Count Ledochowski, of an 
 ancient Polish family, has made the little country his head- 
 quarters during the war. The claims of his race and of his 
 order combine to concentrate his interest upon the fate 
 of the Western Slavs, and in his vast designs of proselytism 
 in Eastern Europe, a specially subservient role is assigned 
 to CathoUc Austria, decadent but politically pUable. • 
 
 The action of M. Clemenceau represents a complete 
 breach with the whole of this Swiss underworld, and will 
 probably involve a revision of tactics on the part of the 
 Reverteras and Montlongs. Even the Unk which Charles 
 had established with Washington through Professor 
 Lammasch and the Coffee King, Herr Meinl, would seem 
 to have been abruptly severed. But, pending the next 
 batch of revelations, it behoves the AlHed Governments to 
 abandon unpromising coquetting with bankrupt Austria. 
 They and their peoples must realise that only defeat can 
 release the Habsburg Monarchy from its present vassalage 
 to Berlin and that it is mere waste of time to deal with the 
 valet behind his master's back. 
 
A CONTEST OE IDEALS ^ 
 
 A CRITICAL moment has once more been readied in the 
 great struggle of ideas and tendencies which is being waged 
 behind the more material struggle of the trenches : and 
 unless we are content to be forestalled by the Central 
 Powers, we must advance beyond mere abstract principles 
 and give practical expression to the political faith that is 
 in us. 
 
 The Treaty of Brest stood for the open abandonment by 
 Germany of the Reichstag Peace Eesolution of July 1917 
 and the poHcy underlying it — if and in so far as that poHcy 
 was ever seriously meant. While professing to rest upon 
 the principle of self-determination, as accepted by Revolu- 
 tionary Russia, it actually applied it according to the crude 
 schoolboy method of " Heads I win, tails you lose." It was 
 to be valid for the former Russian Empire, but the terri- 
 tories of the Central Empires were strictly excluded from 
 its operation. In short, Berlin's affected concern for the 
 fate and aspirations of Lithuania or Courland is simply a 
 gigantic scheme of camouflage, intended to add a whole 
 series of new and dependent satellites to the great " Central 
 European " State which is forming before our eyes. The 
 Treaty of Bucarest again is the logical and inevitable out- 
 come of Brest, and the consummation of both is the agree- 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. vii. No. 84, May 23, 1918, 
 
 174 
 
A CONTEST OF IDEALS 175 
 
 ment concluded between the two Emperors last week at 
 German Headquarters. Those who complain that M. 
 Clemenceau's publication of the Emperor Charles's letter has 
 driven Austria-Hungary under the German yoke have not 
 grasped the elements of the poHtical situation in Europe. 
 The vassalage of the Habsburgs to the Hohenzollern had 
 long been an accompHshed fact, the result of Austria- 
 Hungary's military impotence, economic exhaustion and 
 internal disintegration, and still more of Kussia's overwhelm- 
 ing collapse. The French Premier merely tore aside the 
 veil and revealed to the general public what the initiated 
 were already fully aware of. The outward and visible sign 
 of subjection was the assignment of Tirol to Bavaria and 
 of German Bohemia to Saxony for purposes of food supply. 
 A State which can no longer feed those sections of the 
 population upon which its whole political fabric rests can 
 no longer be regarded as an independent factor. 
 
 The terms of this new bargain between Berlin, Vienna, 
 and Budapest — in which, it must always be remembered, 
 Vienna plays a far more subordinate part than Budapest — 
 have not yet been made pubHc. But from the first there 
 has been no attempt to conceal the fact that the aUiance of 
 1879 has been renewed on new and stringent Hnes, and that 
 the net result is a surrender of military and economic in- 
 dependence such as effectually undermines poUtical and 
 dynastic independence also. Not only the decision itself, 
 but also the manner in which it has been taken, may serve 
 as an object lesson to those interested in testing political 
 values, real and apparent, in the Dual Monarchy — as a 
 proof that all the constitutional machinery which has been 
 created in the past sixty years does not really touch the 
 heart of things. We have just had a practical demonstra- 
 tion that there is nothing to prevent the monarch from 
 
176 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 dismissing a Foreign Minister who enjoys the confidence of 
 the farcical Delegations, and replacing him by his own 
 nominee, without consultation with either of the two 
 Premiers. This has been followed by the still more con- 
 clusive demonstration that the whole ruling caste of Hun- 
 gary has finally identified itself with Berlin and the German 
 Alliance, and is prepared to stake its whole future on the 
 result. Those in authority are at last coming to reahse 
 a fact which The New Europe has always asserted to be 
 part of the European political alphabet — namely, that the 
 Magyar oligarchy can only maintain its racial and social 
 hegemony over the disfranchised non-Magyar majority 
 of the population and over its own hideously exploited 
 Magyar peasantry, by strict alliance with the one military 
 Power which has a selfish interest in maintaining Hungary's 
 integrity against Russia, Roumania, Serbia, and Bohemia. 
 Finally we have the demonstration that the very founda- 
 tions of State policy can be altered or transformed in 
 defiance of' the wishes of the Austrian Parliament and 
 people, and that an irresponsible dynastic clique, covered 
 by the farce of an incompetent monarch's " irresjponsi- 
 bility," can enter according to its own good pleasure upon 
 commitments of the most far-reaching nature. After this 
 it is impossible to describe Austria as a constitutional 
 State. 
 
 The delusions which led Western statesmen to dream of 
 " detaching " Austria-Hungary had at least one good side, 
 as showing a dim, if tardy, realisation that in a very 
 material sense the present struggle is being fought out for 
 the bodies of two once great empires— Russia and Austria 
 The victory of one group would place both under the 
 domination of Germany, and so secure to her the possibility 
 of making a fresh bid for world power after one, or at most 
 
A CONTEST OF IDEALS ' 177 
 
 two, generations. The victory of the other will emancipate 
 them both and will inaugurate a new system of national 
 states as the basis of international order. It is essential that 
 public opinion in this country, which already has a very sound 
 grasp of the moral issues involved, and of the rival ethical 
 standards between which the world is called upon to choose, 
 should be encouraged to think out their practical applica- 
 tion, not merely in the West, but also in the East of Europe, 
 The broad lines of the enemy design are already visible. 
 The Habsburg dominions wiU become a Triple instead of a 
 Dual Monarchy by the addition to them as a separate entity 
 of the greater part of Russian Poland. The PoHsh Con- 
 servatives may be beguiled into an acceptance of the scheme 
 by the promise of Eastern Gralicia, the much-contested 
 Cholm and, perhaps, even portions of White Russia ; and 
 Germany, while recouping herself by annexing some of the 
 industrial districts adjoining Silesia, will aim at perman- 
 ently embroiling the Poles with the Ukrainians and with 
 Russia — a task rendered easy by the memory of old feuds. 
 The formation of a bogus Polish State under the Habsburgs 
 will reduce the Slav population of Austria by eight milhons, 
 and place the Czechs in a minority as against the Germans. 
 The assignment of Bosnia and Dalmatia to autonomous 
 Croatia, as an annexe of the Hungarian Crown, will have 
 the double advantage of completing the isolation of the 
 Czechs and of separating the Croats from the Slovenes, 
 the latter thus becoming more than ever the prey of militant 
 Pangermanism in its advance upon Trieste. Under such 
 a dispensation the Slovaks and Roumanians would be sur- 
 rendered, body and soul, to the Magyars. Meanwhile 
 Germany would establish a direct control over the new 
 border States of Lithuania, Courland, Esthonia, and the 
 Ukraine. Finland would become a strategic key for the 
 
 N 
 
178 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 domiriation of tlie Baltic, the Ukraine and Eonmania a 
 double line of approach to Caucasia and Persia. 
 
 The immediate issue upon which we entered the war 
 — the violation of Belgium — has been transcended by 
 the far vaster issues of Eastern and South - Eastern 
 Europe. Belgium, Alsace, and Serbia are symbols of 
 outraged Public Law. The huge zone of subject peoples 
 which hes between the Baltic, the Black, and the 
 Adriatic Seas represents the stakes upon which the 
 fate of the moral world depends. Just as Germany's 
 ruthless employment of the thirty-five million unwilling 
 Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary as " cannon-fodder " 
 has made all the difference to her powers of resistance," so 
 her organisation of the human and material resources of 
 these hitherto undeveloped territories will supj^ly her 
 with the instruments of world power and frustrate all 
 aspirations towards a Society of Nations resting upon 
 legal suasion and the consent of the governed. The 
 moral and material issues are inextricably bound up. To 
 regret this is like regretting the solar system. We have 
 been put in this world to respect the laws of the Universe, 
 even when expressed in terms of international politics. 
 
 The favourable military situation which Germany ha& 
 known so well how to exploit, makes it all the more incum- 
 bent upon the Allies to define still further the moral aims 
 for which they are contending, to evolve a concrete political 
 and social theory such as will act as a decisive antidote to 
 the Prussian doctrine of the Will to Power. In the speeches 
 of President Wilson, and in a lesser degree of other Entente 
 statesmen, we already possess the broad lines upon which 
 the new world order may be worked out. But the vindica- 
 tion of Public Right and the establishment of guarantees 
 for a lasting peace must be translated into immediate 
 
A CONTEST OF IDEALS 179 
 
 action. To wait till Germany can be included in a 
 League of Nations would be to wait for a " change of 
 heart " such as only time, and (in the belief of many of 
 her own best minds) probably only defeat, can bring. But 
 there already exists a League of Nations, great and small, 
 whom the stress of circumstances is every day forcing 
 more and more to " pool " their resources and energies, 
 and slowly but surely to standardise their poHtical ideals as 
 well as their ships and engines. Let us impart to this 
 League without undue delay a conscious form : let us 
 endeavour to ensure its permanence as the bulwark of a 
 new order : let us organise its economic forces and supplies 
 of raw material, not for purposes of vengeance or extortion, 
 but as a conscious instrument for rendering innocuous the 
 marauding tendencies of the Prussian dynasty and state. 
 
 The Allies, if their abstract ideals are to become a living 
 reahty and not a mere delusive vision, must work out and 
 publish a practical scheme of the world as they conceive 
 it when victory shall have been achieved — of the workaday 
 world in which every nation — the German nation no less 
 than its enemies or its victims — ^is to find scope for its own 
 legitimate and peaceful development. And in any scheme 
 the real test of success must lie in European reconstruction. 
 The Entente already stands deeply committed to the prin- 
 ciple of Nationahty as the preHminary condition to a 
 stable international order, but it still hesitates to accept all 
 the implications involved. Here and there it has shown 
 undue tenderness towards certain dynastic or financial 
 interests which act as props to a slowly decaying structure. 
 It must once and for all associate itself with the interests 
 and aspirations of the peoples and leave the dynasties to 
 find their own accord. Above all, in order to prove its 
 constructive value, it must adduce proofs to show that 
 
180 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the national regrouping of the Dual Monarchy and of 
 the Eussian borderlands will increase, not diminish, the 
 stability of the political situation : that the alternative to 
 present conditions is not the creation of a crowd of weak 
 and mutually antagonistic states of the second or third rank, 
 but far rather the restoration of political units such as 
 Poland and Bohemia,- which at an early stage of history 
 amply iustified their right to independent statehood ; the 
 consummation of the Jugoslav and Roumanian movements 
 for national unity, which in their own way are as irresist- 
 ible as their forerunner in the Italian Peninsula ; and the 
 constitution, on the sure foundations of racial affinity, eco- 
 nomic interest, and geographical self-sufficiency, of groups 
 or leagues of aUied nations, capable of forming a first stage 
 towards a wider international system. Thus Bohemia, 
 Poland, and Roumania would form a natural chain, resting 
 upon a restored and federated Russian Republic : nor 
 would there be anything to prevent a Hungary, once 
 purged of its ruling oligarchy, associating itself with this 
 group. Roumania would be the connecting link between 
 this and another more southerly group, consisting of 
 Jugoslavia, Albania, and Greece, in intimate alliance with 
 Italy, who in her turn would be closely linked with the 
 Western Powers. Here again the inclusion of Bulgaria in 
 a future Balkan Confederation would no longer be a mere 
 Utopia when Jugoslav and Roumanian unity were achieved 
 and when the Coburger and his tools saw themselves forced 
 to renounce their design of a Bulgarian hegemony in the 
 Balkans. 
 
OUE PEACE TERMS (OCTOBER 1918) ^ 
 
 Two years have passed since The New Europe was 
 founded, and our second birthday has brought us — to 
 quote the phrase of Lord Grey — " within sight, though 
 not yet within reach " of that Integral Victory upon which 
 " the Eeorganisation of Europe " and the peace of the 
 world depend. For two years we have not ceased to warn 
 our readers against the German designs of " Mittel-Europa " 
 and " Berlin-Bagdad," and later on against the no less 
 dangerous after-thoughts of which the Brest and B nearest 
 Treaties are the practical expression. To-day the whole 
 edifice of Pangerman ambition seems tottering to its fall, 
 and Berlin, faced by the defection and collapse of its Allies, 
 is desperately striving to forestall overwhelming military 
 defeat. But for that very reason we shall warn all the 
 more insistently against the plausible and insidious pro- 
 posals by which the enemy still hopes to save the old order 
 in Central Europe, to preserve the prestige of the military 
 caste, and to avert the collapse of German and Magyar 
 hegemony and the emancipation of its victims. To-day 
 even the sceptic will admit that the realisation of our 
 programme is no longer Utopian ; but this only serves to 
 enjoin upon us the need for sober language, based upon 
 calm confidence in a just cause. 
 
 1 From The New Europe, voL ix. No. 105, October 17, 1918. 
 
 181 
 
182 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 The pace hastens as the climax of the war is reached, and 
 amid the rush of events a speech of Mr. Balfour, made on 
 the occasion of Bulgaria's surrender, has not received the 
 full attention which is its due. One passage in particular 
 we think it well to reproduce in full, since it appears to us to 
 sum up the true doctrine with regard to a peace settlement, 
 and to refute, in the most direct and simple manner, the all 
 too common fallacy that our present enemies can be ad- 
 mitted into a League of Nations on the basis of the terri- 
 torial status quo, and that, in that event, all the open sores 
 which have plagued the body poHtic of Europe will heal by 
 homoeopathic methods. 
 
 If you are going to briag into existence an international 
 machinery for the securing of peace, you must so arrange the 
 map of Europe and of the world that great occasions for wars 
 will not overwhelm you. If you perpetuate the state of things 
 which exists now in Central Em-ope — if you render permanent 
 the German domination over Russia, especially over West 
 Russia ; if you leave no hope to the small peoples along the 
 Baltic ; if you refuse to redress the century or more of wrong to 
 Poland and leave her where she has been for all these genera- 
 tions ; if the subordinate peoples who have for generations in 
 Austria-Hungary been trampled under the heel of German and 
 Magyar minorities are still left in their present position ; if the 
 Balkans are again to be the scene of bloody wars among them- 
 selves and the occasion of hostiHties among their neighbours ; 
 if the Turk is to be allowed to resume his bloody sway over the 
 territories which have been torn from him ; if Italy is not to 
 have restored and added to her those populations which will 
 really make her Italy redeemed ; if Greece is to be threatened 
 by the domination of the Central Powers ; if Serbia is not to be 
 restored after all her appalling sacrifices, and after all her 
 glorious gallantry ; if France is not to resume her full place in 
 Western Europe, and if Belgium is not to have restored to her 
 in full measure all that the abominable brigandage of the Central 
 Empires has torn from her — if all those evils are not potentially 
 to recur, then you must do something more than merely estabhsh 
 
THE NEW EUROPE 
 
 GEORGE PHILIP d SONjLTO. 
 
184 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 a League of Nations — ^you must put all these wrongs right before 
 the League of Nations sets to work. You must give them a 
 clean slate to work upon. . . . After you have freed Europe 
 from Prussian Mihtarism, after you have restored Asia as well 
 as Europe to a position in which self -development is possible for 
 the various nationahties which occupy them — then, and then 
 only, will your League of Nations work. 
 
 As Lord Grey said a few days later, " A League of 
 Nations cannot be a substitute for a successful termination 
 of the war. It must arise out of the successful termination 
 of this war." Europe must be reconstituted on the basis of 
 satisfied nationalism before the new international order of^ 
 things can be established. When we speak of a League 
 of Nations, we mean a League of Nations, but there are still 
 many who conceive of it as a League of States and Govern- 
 ments in the old pre-war sense. And yet, so long as a State 
 like Turkey is recognised as the mouthpiece of those non- 
 Turkish races which have survived centuries of misrule and 
 massacre, it is not merely illogical but positively farcical 
 to advocate its inclusion in a League of Nations. So long 
 as Austria-Hungary survives as a feudal family estate, 
 perpetuating the hegemony of two races and castes over a 
 horde of political helots, it is equally useless to talk of a 
 League of Nations. Austria-Hungary and Turkey are not 
 even geographical expressions ; they are the dunghills of 
 European history, which to-day are a danger to the public 
 health, but to-morrow may serve to fertilise new and 
 fruitful fields of national life. 
 
 Meanwhile, President Wilson and Lord Grey are im- 
 questionably right in claiming that " the constitution of a 
 League of Nations and the clear definition of its objects 
 must be a part, in a sense the most essential part, of the 
 peace settlement itself." The cart cannot come before 
 
OUR PEACE TERMS 185 
 
 the horse, and thus the establishment of a new order and 
 the " reorganisation of Europe " (to use the official Allied 
 phrase of December 1916) must be our first concern. But 
 the cart and harness must be in readiness, and although 
 the building of the League can only be the second stage, it 
 must foUow logically and without an interval from the 
 first stage. We beHeve that we are interpreting the mind 
 of President Wilson himself when we maintain that a 
 public and immediate enunciation of the essential principles 
 upon which future international relations must rest, would 
 be the surest means of estabhshing general confidence in 
 our intentions. 
 
 We do not presume, at so critical a moment as the 
 present, to pift forward cut -and -dried schemes for the 
 settlement of all the vast questions raised in this greatest 
 of wars. But we beUeve that the moment has come when 
 we must justify our attitude for the past two years by a 
 frank statement of the faith that is in us — a statement 
 which shall include alike the abstract principles which 
 must direct the new order, and the very practical conditions 
 on which alone we can consent to bargain with our enemies, 
 and at a later stage to readmit them to the comity of 
 nations. Our foremost aims are to stimulate thought and 
 discussion and to contribute towards that unity of resolve 
 and aspiration through which alone, when the war is won, 
 we can hope to win the peace. 
 
186 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF A 
 LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 {Suggested Declaration of Adhesion) 
 
 The Contracting Powers declare it to be their foremost 
 aim to prevent a recurrence of wars, and to lay the basis 
 of a permanent peace between the nations and, in particular, 
 in Europe. 
 
 They further declare their conviction that such an end 
 can be best attained by the creation, after the conclusion of 
 peace, of a League of Nations, vested with a definite super- 
 State authority. They recognise, however, that such a 
 League can only be made a practical reality if it be con- 
 structed with due regard to the following fundamental 
 principles : — 
 
 1. That in every civilised State the consent of the 
 governed must be the determining factor. 
 
 2. That this consent necessarily involves the right of 
 every national unit to control its own destinies, and to 
 decide its State-allegiance (self-determination). 
 
 3. That the principle of nationality is a vital factor in 
 the European political situation, and that the satisfaction 
 of legitimate national aspirations must precede the creation 
 of an international order. 
 
 4. That dynastic interests must henceforth be sub- 
 ordinated to the interests of the peoples themselves. 
 
 5. That those Powers which are charged with the 
 government of semi-civiUsed or uncivilised races are bound 
 to govern as trustees for the governed, to prevent their 
 mihtary or economic exploitation, and to prepare them by 
 gradual stages for self-government. 
 
OUK PEACE TEEMS 187 
 
 6. That the peoples, through their accredited repre- 
 sentatives, are alone entitled to decide upon political 
 engagements entered upon with neighbouring States, and 
 that secret treaties concluded without their knowledge 
 are no longer to be regarded as binding. 
 
 7. That only a prompt abandonment of competitive 
 armaments, and the substitution of national militias for the 
 existing conscript armies, can save Europe and the world 
 from economic and social ruin. 
 
 They declare this Treaty to be vahd only in virtue of 
 the League of Nations which it brings into being. 
 
 THE TEEEITOEIAL SETTLEMENT 
 
 I. Belgium. — The Belgian question is on an entirely 
 different footing from any other questions raised by the 
 war, and thus the Germans must, as a preUminary to any 
 discussion, abandon all pretence of treating Belgium or 
 Belgian colonial possessions as a " pawn " for purposes of 
 bargaining. Belgium must be restored to complete in- 
 dependence within her former frontiers, and must be 
 indemnified by Germany for the destruction of property 
 and for all public and private losses incurred during the 
 war. Until the stolen property can be restored, and, 
 above all, until the factories of Belgium recover the 
 machinery and equipment which the Germans have re- 
 moved, there must be adequate material compensation for 
 the handicap to Belgian industry during the transition 
 period. 
 
 The future international status of Belgium, and the 
 question whether the old method of guaranteed neutrality 
 is to be revived, must be decided in accordance with the 
 wishes of the Belgian people itself. 
 
188 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 The people of Luxemburg must be left free to determine 
 whether the Grand Duchy shall continue as part of the 
 German Zollverein or shall enter into a federal or integral 
 union with Belgium. 
 
 II. France. — ^Alsace-Lorraine must be restored to France. 
 The forcible detachment of these two provinces from France 
 without their being consulted and in defiance of their 
 publicly expressed desire, set the seal to that reign of force 
 in Europe which it is the aim of the Allies to overthrow, 
 and the undoing of this act of injustice is therefore an in- 
 dispensable preliminary to the re-establishment of public 
 right in Europe. 
 
 If it should be decided to reinforce this decision by a 
 popular verdict the plebiscite must be extended to those 
 famines which have emigrated or been expelled since 1871, 
 and denied to Germans who have only settled in the pro- 
 vinces during the present century. 
 
 III. Germany. — There must be no interference with 
 German unity or with the German people's right to deter- 
 mine its own form of government ; and while the in- 
 habitants of Alsace-Lorraine, Slesvig, and Posen must be 
 free to resume their former allegiance, if they should so 
 desire, the German provinces of Austria must also be free 
 to imite with the German Empire. 
 
 IV. Poland. — A united and independent Polish State 
 must be created, comprising all territories inhabited by a 
 compact Polish majority, and provided with the necessary 
 access to the sea. The devastation of Polish territory 
 during the war must be charged in equal proportions to 
 the . Governments of Germany, Austria -Hungary, and 
 Russia, or the Governments of such new States as may 
 replace one or other of them ; and an international com- 
 mission shall be appointed to assess the damages. 
 
OUE PEACE TEEMS 189 
 
 V. Russia. — The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the supple- 
 mentary economic treaties of September, and Germany's 
 special treaties with the Ukraine, Finland, and Georgia must 
 be declared null and void, and with them all engagements 
 and contracts entered upon with the Central Powers or 
 their subjects since the Bolsevik Revolution of last 
 November. All enemy troops must be withdrawn from 
 the territory of the former Russian Empire. The various 
 nations inhabiting that territory must then be given full 
 opportunity to decide their own fate by means of freely 
 elected Constituent Assemblies. This would apply to 
 Esthonia, Lettonia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, the Caucasus, 
 and Siberia, in addition to the mass of Great Russian 
 territory. The Powers should make every effort to pro- 
 mote the reconstitution of Russia on a federal basis, and, 
 while strictly refraining from all interference with the form 
 of government to be adopted, should openly engage them- 
 selves to support the principle of Constituent Assemblies. 
 
 VI. Austria - Hungary. — The oppressed nations of 
 Austria-Hungary must be assured the right of declaring 
 and working out their national unity and independence, in 
 conjunction with their free kinsmen beyond the existing 
 frontiers. This right would be exercised by means of 
 Constituent Assemblies, the elections to which would have 
 to be set free from all German and Magyar control. 
 
 The effect of this would be (1) that Western Galicia, 
 with a considerable portion of Austrian Silesia, would 
 become part of the new Polish State ; (2) that Eastern 
 GaHcia would be united with the Ukraine, whether as an 
 independent State or as part of the future federal Russia ; 
 (3) that an independent Bohemia would be constituted out 
 of the existing provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, part of 
 Silesia and the Slovak counties of Northern Himgary ; 
 
190 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 (4) that Transylvania and the Roumanian districts of 
 Hungary proper and of Southern Bukovina would be 
 united with the kingdom of Roumania ; (5) that a united 
 and independent Jugoslav State would be formed, consist- 
 ing of the free kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, the 
 Triune kingdom of Croatia -Slavoni a -Dalmatia, Bosnia- 
 Herzegovina, Carniola, and portions of Istria, Carinthia, 
 Styria, and Southern Hungary ; (6) that Hungary, reduced 
 to her Magyar kernel, would become entirely independent, 
 and, after sweeping away its corrupt and politically 
 bankrupt oligarchy, would adopt extreme democratic 
 forms ; and (7) that the German provinces of Austria — 
 Upper and Lower Austria, Salzburg, Tirol, Vorarlberg, 
 Northern Carinthia, and Styria — would enter the German 
 Empire as a federal State, taking with them or discarding 
 the Habsburg dynasty according to their good pleasure. It 
 might prove possible to add certain portions of German 
 Bohemia to Germany (e.g. the Egerland and the district 
 south of Budweis) ; but it would be necessary for vital 
 economic reasons to preserve the existing northern frontier 
 of Bohemia. 
 
 VII. Italy. — The Irredentist provinces of Trentino, 
 Gorizia, Trieste, and the western districts of Istria must be 
 assigned to Italy, the frontiers being drawn so far as is 
 possible on a basis of nationality. A special arrangement 
 must be guaranteed for the port of Trieste, and free linguistic 
 and cultural development must be secured to the national 
 minorities on either side of the new Italo-Slav frontier. 
 
 VIII. The Balkans. — A definitive settlement of the 
 Balkan problem being dependent upon the settlement of 
 the Austrian problem, the achievement of Jugoslav and 
 Roumanian unity must take precedence of all other changes. 
 The Treaty of Bucarest must be entirely abrogated, and 
 
OUK PEACE TERMS 191 
 
 Eoumania evacuated by German troops. Serbia, Monte- 
 negro, and Roumania must be indemnified for the ravages 
 committed upon their territories. The conclusion of 
 peace must be followed by a special conference of the 
 Associated Powers and their Balkan allies for the purpose 
 of delimiting the Balkan frontiers so far as possible on 
 ethnographic lines (though with due regard for economic 
 and geographical requirements), and of promoting a Balkan 
 confederation, to which Jugoslavia, Roumania, Greece, 
 Bulgaria, and Albania would be free to adhere. This 
 conference would further have to devise the means for 
 assuring to the Albanians the free right of self-determina- 
 tion. Italy would be free to retain Valona until such time 
 as general disarmament and the dismantUng of similar 
 strategic points should be carried through. 
 
 IX. Turkey. — Ottoman rule must henceforth be re- 
 stricted so far as possible to territory inhabited by Turks. 
 Armenia and Arabia must form independent States, while 
 the international status of Syria and Mesopotamia must be 
 decided by a special Conference for the discussion of the 
 afEairs of the Middle East. To this Conference must also 
 be referred all questions arising out of the future status of 
 Constantinople and of the Straits, which must be made free 
 and accessible to the ships of all nations ; as also the 
 questions of the Capitulations and the Ottoman Public 
 Debt. Palestine must become a Jewish State, under the 
 guarantee of the future League of Nations, a special status 
 being, however, assigned to the Holy City and due regard 
 shown for the privileges and traditions of each of the 
 religions there represented. 
 
 X. With regard to the German Colonies, the Pacific 
 Islands must be assigned to Austraha, South-West Africa 
 to the Union of South Africa, and Kiau-chau to Japan 
 
192 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 (subject to arrangement with China) ; while the remainder 
 should, in the phrase of Mr. Lloyd George, be held at the 
 disposal of the Peace Congress, it being clearly understood 
 that Great Britain, though ready to renounce them for 
 herself, cannot consent to their being restored, as possible 
 submarine bases, to Germany. 
 
 In addition to the above territorial conditions, the 
 following provisions must be regarded as essential to a just 
 and lasting settlement : — 
 
 A. The establishment of an international tribunal, 
 before which all persons guilty of ofiences against the laws 
 of war or of humanity, and in particular of the Geneva 
 Red Cross Convention, shall be tried and punished. 
 
 B. The repudiation by all the Governments concerned 
 of the hitherto prevailing methods of secret diplomatic 
 contract, and the establishment of the principle that no 
 treaty or agreement between States shall be binding until 
 it shall have been ratified by the elected representative 
 bodies of the respective countries. 
 
 C. The immediate establishment, after the conclusion 
 of peace, of an international Economic Commission, with 
 a view to removing, so far as may be practicable f all restric- 
 tions upon free commercial intercourse among the nations 
 — always subject to such measures as may be found 
 necessary in each country for the due protection of certain 
 expressly defined " key-industries." 
 
 D. The replacing by the Central Powers of all the 
 mercantile tonnage belonging to the Associated Powers 
 or to neutral States which has been illegally sunk by 
 submarines during the present war. 
 
 E. The establishment of international control of river 
 navigation on the Vistula, Elbe, Danube, Rhine, and 
 Scheldt ; of free ports, open to the commerce of all nations, 
 
OUK PEACE TERMS 193 
 
 at Trieste, Fiume, Danzig, Salonica, and Constantinople ; 
 and of international railway tariffs on certain lines con- 
 necting landlocked countries with the sea. 
 
 F. The establishment in every country of strict govern- 
 mental control of armaments and of all firms deaUng in 
 weapons or munitions of war. 
 
STRATEGY WHICH IGNORES POLITICS ^ 
 
 " If the great (Balkan) game (of the Entente) had succeeded, 
 it might have been, as we may now confess, the beginning of the 
 end. Germany and Austria would then really have been a 
 besieged fortress shut in on all sides." — Col. Gadke, in Leipziger 
 Volkszeitung, Oct. 14, 1916. 
 
 If any doubts were still possiJ)le as to the true inwardness 
 of the German war plan, the overrunning of Roumania must 
 surely have dispelled them. It must at last be dawning 
 upon even the most obtuse brain that the Germans regard 
 the fate of South-Eastern Europe as a vital issue, and are 
 prepared for its sake to take enormous risks. It is true 
 that certain writers (including a distinguished retired 
 general) do not hesitate to treat the campaigns of Macken- 
 sen and Falkenhayn as " the last throw of a gambler " 
 whose " fast drooping spirits " are " at the lowest ebb." 
 But the plain man who reads the daily bulletins with his 
 atlas before him, and is not misled by the posters, whose 
 persistent efforts to distort our mental focus have become 
 little short of a public danger, will merely marvel at the 
 astounding assertion that " Germany and Austria have 
 been defeated and thrown back ori every other front." 
 That Roumania represented, for the moment, the line of 
 least resistance is no valid ground for assuming that the 
 
 ^ From The New Europe, vol. i. No. 3, November 2, 1916. 
 
 194 
 
STRATEGY WHICH IGNORES POLITICS 195 
 
 German staff knows its " defeat " to be " irretrievable." 
 It is merely a proof that the Germans have always under- 
 stood the lesson which we have always refused to learn, 
 that it is well to hit an enemy at his weakest rather than his 
 strongest point. One of our greatest weaknesses in this 
 war has been the refusal to admit awkward facts, the 
 strange illusion that reverses must at all costs be mini- 
 mised or explained away, and that to admit them is equi- 
 valent to " whimpering." The optimism of the front to 
 which Sir W. Robertson recently paid tribute is of a very 
 different quahty. Out in France every one realises that 
 our main task Hes before us, and the Germans — using to 
 the full the superior mobility and uniformity of plan which 
 interior lines and an absolute mihtary control of their Allies 
 secure to them — are still strong enough to dam back all the 
 heroism of Verdun and the Somme, of the Carso and the 
 Bzura, while they pursue those political aims for the execu- 
 tion of which the German military machine has been pre- 
 pared with such minute, unflagging, and relentless efficiency. 
 The Balkans, we are told, are a " side-show," and events in 
 that region can never decide, or even materially influence, 
 the main issues of the war ; and public opinion, slow and 
 illogical as ever, does not allow itself to be dislodged from 
 this comfortable theory by the awkward fact that the 
 Germans have sent two of their best generals, and all the 
 men they can spare, to that very region at what is still 
 called the " crisis of the war." And yet it is generously 
 admitted that the Germans know something about strategy 
 and warfare in general. Truly criticism of the airy kind 
 which treats the conquest of Poland as having miscarried 
 (see a leading weekly last Saturday) is difficult to deal with. 
 The conquest of the Dobrudja is an event of capital im- 
 portance in the history of the war, if considered in the light 
 
196 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of what preceded it. The failure of the Western Powers 
 to understand the true significance of Austria-Hungary or 
 to seek out the gaping joints in her military and political 
 armour had led them to neglect the lessons of General 
 Potiorek's rout in Central Serbia. They were blind to the 
 imperative need for holding the Danube front against in- 
 vasion from the north, and thus both securing the gate 
 which leads to the vitals of the Central Powers and cutting 
 off the Turks from the material aid without which they 
 could not have continued the struggle. Mackensen's fresh 
 onslaught upon Serbia, in conjunction with the Bulgarians, 
 found the Entente once more entirely unprepared. The 
 hinterland of Salonica rapidly replaced the Danube as a 
 barrier against the Germans and — yet another capital 
 blunder — ^the inviolable Montenegrin fortress of Mount 
 Lovcen, with all its neglected possibilities against the 
 Austrian naval base of Cattaro, was soon afterwards allowed 
 to fall into the enemy's hands. There followed nine months 
 of inactivity, interspersed with intrigues of' astonishing 
 crudity and ineptitude with Bulgaria, while a- fatal blend 
 of sentimental irresolution and arrogant tactlessness drove 
 King Constantino into the enemy's camp, and disorganised 
 the whole Greek machine of State. The entry of Rou- 
 mania in August provided the Entente with an opportunity 
 of making good the fatal errors of the preceding autumn, 
 of recovering a point of vantage against Austria-Hungary, 
 and, at the same time, of co-operating with the Salonica 
 expedition in the all-important task of cutting Germany's 
 connection with Constantinople. But once again the 
 Entente was without a plan, and threw away the advant- 
 ages which Mr. Bratianu's diplomatic skill had earned. If 
 the Russians were not ready at the moment when the 
 Roumanians entered Transylvania, to pour several hundred 
 
STKATEGY WHICH IGNORES POLITICS 197 
 
 thousand men into Bulgaria, and, aided by a vigorous 
 offensive from the iEgean, to threaten the line to the East, 
 then it was nothing less than madness to allow the Rou- 
 manians to abandon their neutrahty, and those respons- 
 ible for prompting them deserve condign punishment. As 
 a sign that a keenly observant neighbour regarded Austria- 
 Hungary's position as irreparable, Roumania's action was 
 highly significant ; but what made it of such immense 
 value to the AUied cause as a whole was the fact that it at 
 last suppUed Russia with the possibihty of that land ad- 
 vance upon Constantinople which had hitherto been denied 
 her. In point of fact, we now know that, instead of hun- 
 dreds, there were only tens, of thousands ; that, of these, 
 the majority belonged to the heroic Jugoslav legions levied 
 last spring in Odessa ; that the Bulgars make short, work 
 of the pathetic Russian illusion that they would not resist 
 the troops of the Tsar Liberator ; and that Mackensen is 
 straining every nerve to complete his conquest of the 
 Dobrudja as far north as the delta of the Danube. It is 
 to be hoped that the very strenuous if belated efforts of the 
 Alh'es will prevent him from effecting a crossing and invad- 
 ing the rich plains of Roumania proper. But it must not 
 be forgotten for a moment that, unless he can once more 
 be ejected before he has time to consolidate his position, 
 the Entente wiU be deprived of one of its most promising 
 fields of strategy. Its final loss would add many months to 
 the war, just as a fortiori the overrunning of Roumania 
 would prolong it by at least a year, and, indeed, gravely 
 compromise those prospects of final victory which depend 
 upon the pivotal position of Constantinople. The question 
 of the Straits may one day decide the future of the Entente 
 and of Europe. 
 
 While, then, every effort must be made, and we believe 
 
198 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 is being made, by Russia to retrieve the Entente's grave 
 blunders in the past two months, and save the situation 
 in Northern, and above all in Southern, Roumania, it is 
 incumbent upon the Western Allies to play their part by 
 strengthening the Salonica army by every means in their 
 power. A year ago our authorities risked a severe crisis 
 in the history of the Entente by their stubborn reluctance 
 to fulfil the Balkan engagements which the French rightly 
 held to be binding and urgent ; and though, after much 
 valuable time had been lost, we at length yielded to the 
 insistent pressure of Paris, the official British attitude for 
 the greater part of 1916 has borne an uncomfortable re- 
 semblance to that of Achilles sulking in his tent before 
 Troy. It is to be hoped that the fatal old idea of starving 
 Salonica has been finally abandoned, and that General 
 Sarrail will receive all the necessary reinforcements before 
 it is utterly too late. We have heard more than enough of 
 the silly catchword that '^ the only thing which counts is 
 killing Germans." But if that is really the end of military 
 wisdom, it can be attained as easily at Monastir, in the 
 Dobrudja, and in Transylvania as on the Somme and the 
 Meuse. 
 
 November 2, 1916. 
 
 [It is now a matter of history, that so far from allowing such 
 elementary considerations to weigh with them, the supreme 
 mihtary authorities continued for another year and more to 
 press for abandonment, and when this was prevented by the 
 sagacity of the French, to starve Salonica from a military point 
 of view. It is also a matter of history that the final push which 
 rendered the collapse of Austria- Hungary inevitable and pre- 
 cipitated the German Revolution, came from despised Salonica, 
 and was conducted on the lines long advocated by the Voivode 
 Misic.] 
 
THE IMPORTANCE OF SALONICA^ 
 
 Two of the prime causes of failure in war have always been 
 the ignorance of politicians who presume to interfere in 
 strategy and the ignorance of soldiers who persist in paralys- 
 ing policy. In this war we have suffered from both to 
 an alarming degree. Meanwhile, the Germans have not 
 merely had the immense advantage of interior lines and 
 superior communications, but have been able to exploit 
 this advantage to its fullest extent because they have from 
 the first co-ordinated strategy and policy. They have 
 always had a war plan — and indeed a war plan with several 
 alternatives and " second-bests." The AlHes as a whole 
 have never had a plan at all, and even at this moment are 
 only very slowly evolving one. It is the consciousness of 
 the fact that we are at length beginning to learn from our 
 mistakes and to prepare for a really concentric attack, 
 based upon unity of aim, that is one of Germany's main 
 reasons for desiring peace while her armies are yet at the 
 top of their effort. 
 
 Individual initiative has always been the glory of the 
 British race ; but the days of Wolfe and Chve are in the 
 past. To-day initiative is more needed than ever, but it 
 must be discipHned in a sense hitherto unrealised, and must 
 know how to take full advantage of all those forces upon 
 
 ^ Prom The New Europe, vol. i. No. 13, January 11, 1917. 
 
 199 
 
200 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 which modern science and organisation compel soldier and 
 statesman alike to rely. 
 
 The Allies, we repeat, have need of a clear political plan. 
 Without this there can be no such thing as strategic victory, 
 for strategy is merely policy translated into terms of war. 
 " The destruction of Prussian Militarism " or " the crushing 
 of Germany " are mere rhetorical phrases far too vague to 
 deserve the title of a programme. They can only satisfy 
 the type of mind which regards the present war as a death 
 grapple between two wild animals, one of which must 
 scratch out the other's eyes. The real problem at stake is 
 the final emancipation of Europe as a whole from those 
 feudal conceptions which have lingered in so many quarters 
 — from the right of dynasties to prescribe the fate of peoples, 
 from the beUef in brute force as the dominant factor in 
 human progress, from the pacifist illusion that the wealth 
 of nations merely consists in financial credit, and from the 
 veiled designs of capital upon the liberties of labour. The 
 German Will to Power can only be met on the part of the 
 Allies by the Will to a new Europe. The determining 
 factor in reconstruction will be the fate of Austria-Hungary, 
 the Balkans, and Turkey, for it is in these countries that the 
 stakes lie. So long as they remain the blind instruments 
 of German policy and of German strategy — and the narrow 
 castes which control their destinies can never be detached 
 voluntarily from an alliance which is the very basis of their 
 continuance in power — so long will Germany dominate the 
 continent. 
 
 It took the nation a long time to realise that it was at 
 war at all, and even to-day it has scarcely realised that it is 
 at war with Austria-Hungary and with Turkey. Yet upon 
 the fate of these two countries depends our ability to settle 
 accounts once and for all with Germany. The skill with 
 
THE IMPOETANCE OF SALONICA 201 
 
 wMcli the latter dovetailed the armies of her allies into her 
 own military system, thereby supplementing indefinitely the 
 available stock of " cannon-fodder," symbolises the extent 
 to which her fate is bound up with theirs. The neglect of 
 these problems, the persistence of the theory that our only 
 foe is Germany, who faces us at close range across the North 
 Sea, is the natural legacy of that " splendid isolation "to 
 which our insular traditions gave birth, and Hes at the root 
 of the exaggerated theory of " Westernism " which still 
 lingers in high places. 
 
 While endeavouring to combat " Westernism " in its 
 extreme form, we venture to think that any attempt to 
 define the strategic issue as a combat between East and 
 West rests upon a fundamental misconception of the facts. 
 We beUeve it to be true to say that no serious advocate of 
 operations in the East would dream of denying that our 
 main elSort must be in the West, and that the future of our 
 relations with Germany, and therefore the whole future 
 development of Europe, depends upon the military decision 
 on the Western front. But this is a very different thing 
 from arguing that " the fate of the world must be staked 
 upon the Western front and nowhere else." Such an 
 argument is merely a comic inversion of the proverb which 
 warns us against putting all our eggs in one basket ; and, 
 after all, even what its most extreme advocates desire to 
 convey, is simply that there is a limit to the number of 
 baskets of eggs which two arms can conveniently carry at 
 one time. 
 
 The problem of Salonica has from the first been sur- 
 rounded by grave difficulties ; but that is no excuse for 
 complicating it still further by irresponsible and dishonest 
 criticism. To-day the very people who consistently opposed 
 it in the first instance, and thwarted and starved it at every 
 
202 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 stage of its existence, are not merely trying to justify its 
 abandonment by proclaiming a " failure " for which they 
 themselves are largely responsible, but are actually trying 
 to foist the responsibihty for that " failure " upon the 
 shoulders of the late Government. There are many things 
 for which the late Government, and the late Foreign Secre- 
 tary deserve criticism, and nowhere more so than in 
 connection with the Salonica expedition ; but the main 
 criticism which might fairly be directed against them is 
 that they listened so long to the advice of those who wished 
 the Balkans to be abandoned to the enemy, that when at 
 last they acted, they did too Httle, and did even that little 
 too late. To suggest that because General Sarrail's forces 
 have hitherto failed to cut Germany's route to the East 
 they should be withdrawn altogether, is as absurd as to 
 suggest that, because the Somme offensive failed to pre- 
 vent the overrunning of Roumania, our Western policy is 
 definitely bankrupt. The two arguments are based upon 
 the same fallacy, whether we regard them from the military 
 or from the political point of view. 
 
 " War," we are told, " is a business for soldiers and their 
 trained minds," and we are left to assume by impHcation 
 that civiHans are not entitled to a say in military affairs 
 and are sure to provoke disaster. As a matter of fact, it is 
 difficult to find in history any instances of successful wars 
 being conducted by mere soldiers to the exclusion of the 
 politicians, though, of course, there have sometimes been 
 supreme commanders like Gustavus, Frederick, or Napoleon, 
 who combined the mihtary and poUtical control in their 
 own persons. All experience goes to show that the ideal 
 combination in war is a clear poHtical brain to direct and 
 a strong military hand to execute ; when the positions are 
 reversed, a dangerous lack of balance ensues. " It is for the 
 
THE IMPOETANCE OF SALONICA 203 
 
 statesmen of the country at war to prescribe their aims, to 
 find generals capable of executing them, and to provide 
 them with means adequate to the task. The Dardanelles 
 Expedition is probably the most flagrant example in recent 
 history of a political idea, essentially sound in itself but 
 undigested and ill - thought - out, rashly imposed by poli- 
 ticians upon sailors and soldiers alike, under circumstances 
 which rendered success extremely improbable. It is now 
 notorious that saner counsels were overridden, and that the 
 alternative proposal which was then laid before the British 
 Cabinet — the despatch of reinforcements to Serbia — might 
 have averted subsequent disaster in the Balkans, main- 
 tained Turkey in isolation from Germany, prevented 
 Bulgaria from entering the war against us and given us the 
 full benefit of Greek and Roumanian co-operation. 
 
 What is not nearly so well known is the fact that no less 
 grave miscalculations have been committed by the most 
 eminent soldiers on the Entente side, and that these were 
 due, above aU, to their undue neglect of political considera- 
 tions. If the mihtary had had their way, one of the most 
 important towns on the eastern frontier of France would 
 have been evacuated early in the war ; and the decision 
 was only reversed because the civil population decided to 
 risk utter destruction rather than allow their homes to faU 
 into German hands without resistance. If the military 
 had had their way, Paris would not have been defended 
 and the Germans, thus enabled to suck dry the richest 
 prize in France, would long ago have brought the Republic 
 to its knees. Even more significant was the indifference 
 shown by the military, on purely military grounds, to the 
 evacuation of Lille and " the French Lancashire." It was 
 only too late that they realised all that the loss of so many 
 great industrial centres would mean to France during a 
 
204 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 long war, and all the many advantages which it would 
 bring to commanders so devoid of scruple, as the German. 
 Finally, it is hardly necessary to point out that at a critical 
 moment in the psychology of the war, Verdun would have 
 been evacuated, again on purely military grounds, unless 
 the politicians had wisely insisted upon its defence. 
 
 k If we turn to the Balkans we find the same story. Lord 
 Grey, starting from the fundamental error that '' our direct 
 interests in Serbia are nil," completely failed to understand 
 her significance to the British Empire as a barrier on Ger- 
 many's road to the East. But the blame rests equally 
 with the supreme military command of those days, who, 
 only three weeks before Mackensen crossed the Danube, 
 disregarded urgent warnings and treated the idea of a 
 German invasion as blufi. It was military pressure quite 
 as much as his own weakness that made the late Foreign 
 Secretary try to recede from his pubhc pledges of assistance 
 to Serbia {" without reserve and without qualification ") 
 and brought upon him the historical reproach of General 
 Joffre, '' Vous nous lachez sur le champ de bataille." 
 
 The French Government and the French Staff combined 
 to save the honour of the Entente, and ever since then they 
 have been unanimous in recognising the political importance 
 of the Salonica front. But, none the less, obstruction and 
 counter-intrigue continued, and the result of our lop-sided 
 military poUcy and of the perennial lack of co-ordination 
 between the Allies, has been that " the Army of the Orient " 
 has never had numerical superiority, or anything like it, 
 in fighting men. On paper we have nursed one illusion 
 after another. In sober fact, the Bulgarians have always 
 been able to hold their own because our forces have been 
 " starved " politically ; and the only real exploit has been 
 that of the Serbs, but for whose capture of Kajmakcalan 
 
THE IMPORTANCE OF SALONICA 205 
 
 (heights of 8000 feet) in the teeth of every strategic and 
 physical disadvantage even Monastir would still be in 
 Bulgarian hands. Our present tactics place an unduly 
 heavy burden upon the most sorely tried of all our Allies, 
 and, if pursued indefinitely, threaten the Serbian army with 
 extinction before the end of the war. 
 
 It is his knowledge that there is powerful opposition 
 in the West to placing the Salonica Expedition on a sound 
 footing that hes at the root of King Constantine's attitude 
 to the Entente, and has produced chaos in Greece. But 
 the " starvation " policy of extreme Westerners (we repeat, 
 we are all of us Westerners) is also very largely responsible 
 for the " Roumanian blunder." Roumania's entry into the 
 war was sheer insanity unless the Russians were ready to 
 pour masses of troops through the Dobrudja and General 
 Sarrail to make a simultaneous advance in force from 
 Salonica. The fact that neither of these two elementary 
 and essential steps was taken reflects equally upon the 
 poMtical and the military policy of the Entente, and proves 
 that an entirely new outlook upon the war is needed in very 
 high quarters if victory is to be assured. When at length 
 there was a Balkan advance, it came two whole months 
 too late, and lacked from the first the means necessary for 
 success. A strong offensive from the south might have 
 prevented Mackensen from pushing home in Roumania ; 
 but he was, of course, acting upon. full knowledge of its 
 impossibility in view of the limitations imposed upon 
 SarraU. 
 
 Now that prolonged neglect has prevented the Salonica 
 Expedition from achieving much more than a negative 
 success, those who have hampered and opposed it at every 
 turn are now adding insult to injury by advocating its com- 
 plete withdrawal. Such a proposal is the very culmination 
 
206 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of that inability to take wide views and envisage Europe as 
 a whole which has been the secret of our failure hitherto. 
 The life - interests of our Allies make abajidonment un- 
 thinkable, and as Austria-Hungary's exhaustion progresses, 
 the presence of a Southern army, ready to create a diversion 
 when the time comes for Russia to strike home, will assume 
 steadily greater, not lesser, importance. This should be 
 obvious to all save those who have consistently refused to 
 recognise that we are at war with Austria-Hungary as well 
 as her partners. The abandonment of Salonica would be 
 an irreparable blow to British prestige, and would mean 
 the final extinction of our influence in the Near East, and 
 the certain triumph, in one form or another, of the Pan- 
 german design of " Berhn-Bagdad." That would be a just 
 Nemesis for so craven and cynical an attitude towards our 
 Balkan Allies, who have staked their all upon loyalty to the 
 common cause. 
 
 The policy of abandonment rests upon so profound a 
 neglect of the whole political and racial constellation in 
 Central and Southern Europe, that we absolutely decline 
 to believe^ that it can ever receive the sanction of those who 
 now control the political and military destinies of the 
 Entente. 
 
 January 11, 1917. 
 
PANSLAVISM 1 
 
 Napoleon, to whom so many of the half-truths and catch- 
 words of international politics during the last century may 
 be traced, once said that Europe would become either 
 Cossack or Republican. This is one of those phrases which 
 helped to make Panslavism so long a word of ill-omen in 
 England, and no serious attempt has ever been made to 
 present our public with the true interpretation of the word. 
 In the case of the great rival doctrine of Pangermanism, 
 it is true that we all comfortably ignored its very existence, 
 and still more its teachings, until the outbreak of war, 
 and even later : but on the rare occasions on which we 
 condescended to recognise it as a fact, we found its mean- 
 ing perfectly obvious and simple. For us the real question 
 was not so much " What is Pangermanism ? " as " Need 
 we take Pangermanism seriously ? Has it any real sup- 
 port in the German people ? " To-day, our Allies, and, 
 above all, our Russian friends ^nd our would-be allies among 
 the Slavs of Austria, find it extremelv difficult to realise 
 that the " practical English," as they still call us, could 
 ever have asked such a question. In the South Sea Islands 
 every one knows whether a shark has teeth. 
 
 Panslavism is much more difficult to define, because it 
 has many interpretations ; and our attitude must depend 
 
 ^ From The Contemporary Review, No. 610, October 1916. 
 
 207 
 
208 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 upon whether we treat it as a purely Russian product, or as 
 Panslavism in the literal sense of the word. If we limit 
 ourselves to the Russian side of the movement, we inevit- 
 ably find ourselves driven. upon the rocks of political pre- 
 judice and unconsciously siding with one or other of the 
 great tendencies which dominate Russian history, and 
 which may, for convenience' sake, be described as the auto- 
 cratic or theocratic, and the Liberal or Western. Pan- 
 slavism has assumed many var3dng forms according to 
 the currents of the day. Sometimes the racial, sometimes 
 the religious, sometimes the political element gained the 
 upper hand ; but always the influence of all three was 
 noticeable, though in varying degrees. But to-day the 
 fundamental fact which can never be over-emphasised is, 
 that just as you cannot even begin to solve any Slavonic 
 question without considering the attitude of Russia as the 
 greatest of all Slav Powers, so it must be regarded as an 
 axiom in the Slavonic problem as a whole — that the wishes, 
 opinions, and traditions of the other Slav races must re- 
 ceive equal consideration. What difierentiates the Slavonic 
 from all similar racial questions is not open to dispute, and 
 those who had hitherto managed to shut their eyes to it 
 have been forced by the events of the war to recognise it. 
 There are admittedly ties of race, sentiment, and tradition 
 which bind the various Latin races together, and this applies 
 equally to the Anglo-Saxonf if no longer to the Teutonic 
 world. In the same way much is now being written and 
 said of Panturanianism — of the unity of Magyar, Bulgar, 
 and Turk against the corroding influence of Russia, France, 
 and Britain. But the Hnks in the chain of Slavonic racial 
 unity have always been far closer, far more subtle, far more 
 irresistible than those between the Teutonic or Latin races. 
 There is, in spite of the inevitable internal quarrels, a certain 
 
PANSLAVISM 209 
 
 solidarity of feeling which may be resented, or feared, or 
 opposed by the outside world, but cannot be explained 
 away — some deep-seated call of the blood, which rises 
 superior to differences of language, religion, geography, 
 and historical tradition. 
 
 It should be superfluous to recite the bare catalogue of 
 the Slavonic races ; and yet it is necessary to do so when 
 writers of reputation are still capable of classifying even 
 Magyar or Koumanian among the Slavs. The Slavs, then, 
 fall into eight main groups — ^the Kussians, the Poles, the 
 Ruthenes, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Serbo-Croats, and 
 the Bulgars. Of the Lusatians, Mazurians, and other tiny 
 fragments in Eastern Germany, it is unnecessary to speak. 
 Yet even this list raises controversies of a political nature ; 
 for there are many Slavs who argue that the Ruthene (this 
 is the name in common use in Austria, but the Russians 
 describe them as Little Russians, and they themselves 
 prefer the name of Ukrainians) is merely a dialect of Great 
 Russian, and not a separate language. And there are 
 others who in the same way decline to make any serious 
 distinction between C^ech and Slovak. The odium of 
 this Hst, then, must fall, not upon me, but upon the greatest 
 living Slavistic scholar, Vatroslav Jagic, who was Professor 
 at Vienna University and a member of the Academy of 
 Petrograd, for many years editor of that mine of Slavonic 
 learning, the Archivfiir slavische Philologie. 
 
 The true Panslav enthusiast would have us begin with 
 the monkish chronicler Nestor, in the eleventh century,' 
 who described the various races known to him — some with 
 us still, some long since vanished — and continued : " Thus 
 was the Slav nation or language distributed, and the writing 
 which it has adopted is called ' Slavonic writing.' " He 
 even claims the Apostle Paul as '' the apostle of the Slav 
 
 p 
 
210 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 nation to which we Russians belong." Another early 
 chronicler tells how the Slavs left the Tower of Babel and 
 occupied Bulgaria, Dalmatia, Croatia, Bohemia, Poland, 
 Russia, and the Elbe countries. Yet another treats of 
 Cech, Lech, and Rus, the mythical founders of the Czechs, 
 Poles, and Russians, as three brothers ; and there is this 
 much truth in the legend, that all the various Slav dialects 
 seem to trace back to a common ancestor. We know that 
 the Slav apostles, Cyril and Methodius, went from Bulgaria 
 to Moravia to preach, and the fact that there were no 
 serious linguistic barriers between the two countries seems 
 to have been the main reason which prompted the direction 
 of their journey. We, in our ignorance, are accustomed 
 to regard the Slavs as entering far later than the others into 
 the field of culture, and possessing no literature worthy of 
 notice until the last century. But it is to be remembered 
 that the national literature of Kiev, of mediaeval Serbia, 
 and of Bohemia were each in turn abruptly extinguished 
 by foreign conquest after they had already begun to flourish 
 exceedingly. 
 
 We find St. Jerome quite seriously claimed as a Slav, 
 and St. Adalbert publicly declared his Slavonic nationality ; 
 " Slovienen jsem " are his own words. We find continual 
 traces in every century, alike in Bohemia, Poland, Croatia, 
 and Serbia, of the consciousness of Slav origin and kinship. 
 John Hus, Zizka, Vladislav Jagiellon, and that other Vladi- 
 slav who fell at Varna, are obvious champions of Slav 
 national feeling. But perhaps the most interesting figure 
 in the early history of Panslavism is the Croat Catholic 
 priest, Krizanic, whose enthusiasm for Church reunion and 
 grief over the sad state of the Slav race drove him from 
 Rome to Petrograd, and prompted him to produce, in 1665, 
 a Slav grammar, which aimed at constructing a kind of 
 
PANSLAVISM 211 
 
 Panslav language, or Slav lingua franca. He made a 
 strong ecstatic appeal to the Tsar as liberator of the Slavs 
 of the Danube. But he remained an isolated, though 
 significant figure ; his manuscript was not unearthed until 
 1859, and he himself ended his days in Siberia, paying the 
 penalty for being ahead of his age. 
 
 To-day, it is interesting to note the extremely anti- 
 German tinge of his writings. " The Germans," he said, 
 " have driven us (Slavs) from whole districts — Moravia, 
 Pomerania, Silesia, Prussia. In Bohemia there are only 
 very few Slavs left. In Poland all the towns are full of 
 strangers and we are their slaves ; it is for them that we 
 till the soil, for them that we make war, and they remain 
 to feast in their houses, and treat us as dogs and pigs. By 
 their incessant attacks and insults they have reduced many 
 Slavs who five among them to such a situation of despair 
 that they are ashamed of their language and race, and give 
 themselves out as members of another nation. The Ger- 
 mans, after introducing themselves into all the Slav states, 
 are furious at not having been able yet to reduce to their 
 power the Kussian Empire, which God has always preserved 
 from their yoke. Hence, of all Slavs they most detest the 
 Russians, and do all they can to harm them and spread the 
 most infamous reports about them. They have managed 
 to make the Russians absolutely despised in Europe and to 
 divide them, continually sowing among them causes of 
 intestinal quarrel." (Krizanic was indeed a prophet, and 
 he seems to have forestalled the Russian proverb : " What 
 is good for the Russian is fatal for the German.") " It 
 must, however, be remarked," adds this seventeenth-century 
 apostle, " that we Russians and Poles are people of one 
 tongue, children of the same father, and that there cannot 
 be for Russia greater good fortune than a fraternal concord 
 
212 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 between the two peoples." Is it mere folly to express tlie 
 belief that such a reconciliation is to be one of the fruits 
 of this war ? Certainly it is true that, unless it can 
 be achieved, there will have been no solution of the Slav 
 problem, on Panslav, or on any other grounds. 
 
 The problems which are now being decided on the field 
 of battle are of two sorts — problems which had been dor- 
 mant until the war revived or rendered them acute — e.g. 
 Constantinople or Poland, and problems which directly 
 provoked the outbreak. One of the three main causes of 
 the war, side by side with Anglo-German rivalry and the 
 Southern Slav question, is the question of the Ukraine, 
 which goes to the very root of the whole relations between 
 Austria and Kussia, and affects a population much larger in 
 number and area even than the Poles. Will Russia, after 
 this war, be able to exercise sufficient attraction upon the 
 30,000,000 inhabitants of the Ukraine ? Will she follow 
 the natural desire of many enlightened Russian patriots in 
 allowing free scope to the language and to the local require- 
 ments of Southern Russia, or will she revert to the unhappy 
 policy which led her to place soldiers round the grave of 
 the Ruthene Burns, Sevcenko, on his centenary only a 
 month before the war, or to arrest the Ruthene Uniate 
 Archbishop, Monsignor Szeptycki, and during his forced 
 absence in Siberia to encourage the spread of Orthodoxy 
 among his leaderless flock ? Only cowardice can make us 
 shirk these questions ; the fact that there is already wide 
 recognition in Russia itself of the supreme folly of such acts 
 must be at once our excuse and our hope for the future. 
 
 Ej:izanic was not a mere isolated figure. In 1584 Boho- 
 ricz, a Slovene schoolmaster from Laibach, published at 
 Wittenberg a book on Slovene literature in which he treated 
 the Slavs and the Slavonic language as a single unit. The 
 
PANSLAVISM 213 
 
 Slav poets of the Ragusan republic, especially the famous 
 Gundulic, sang the exploits of the great Slav kings, and 
 Kacic, the reviver of Croat popular poetry in Dalmatia in 
 the eighteenth century, cites the quaint legend of Alexander 
 the Great having made a will in favour of the Slavs. The 
 book of another Dalmatian Croat, Orbini, on The Realm of 
 the Slavs (" il regno degli Slavi hoggi corrotamente detti 
 Schiavoni "), pubHshed in 1601 at Pesaro, was thought 
 worth translating into Russian by an Orthodox Archbishop 
 more than a century later. If, to-day, it is specially worth 
 noting the prominent part taken by that keenly Slavonic 
 country, Dalmatia, in its expression of Slav soUdarity, it is 
 also interesting to remember a dissertation of the Bohemian 
 Jesuit Balbin in the eighteenth century — the member of an 
 order which had directed its energies to stamping out the 
 national feehng and hterature of Bohemia. After giving 
 a List of countries in which the lingua Slavonica is spoken, 
 he adds : " There is not in the whole world any other 
 language with which one can, by merely changing the dia- 
 lect, speak to so many peoples and nations." 
 
 If one descends from the clouds of seventeenth-century 
 theories to the hard facts of modern practice, we of course 
 have to admit that the Slavs have been handicapped by 
 the lack of a common language, and it is a common gibe 
 that members of the various Slav nations when they meet 
 together are obliged to communicate in German. But the 
 fact remains that a complete mastery of one Slav language 
 supplies a key to all the others, that the syntax and con- 
 struction are virtually the same in aU, that those who have 
 studied Old Slavonic at school (as is more and more the 
 case) already possess a magic formula which opens all Slav 
 doors ; and, what is much more important, that the humble 
 Slovak pedlar can wander from the Danube within an hour 
 
214 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of Vienna, all the way to Vladivostock, and yet always 
 manage to make himself understood. Here, then, is the 
 true inner explanation of the failure of Magyarisation in 
 Hungary. The Slav peasant is asked to forgo his kinship 
 with the 150,000,000 of the Slav world, for the sake of an 
 Asiatic idiom which is never heard outside the narrow 
 bounds of Hungary. 
 
 It was under Peter the Oreat that Panslavism first 
 began to shape itself in the modern sense, and that the racial 
 and religious affinity between Russia and the Balkan 
 Christians first became noticeable in the field of inter- 
 national politics. There have always been certain mystical 
 elements in the movement, bound up with the Imperial 
 tradition of Byzantium and with Santa Sofia as the symbol 
 of Eastern Christianity ; nor can these elements ever be 
 ignored by any one who desires to understand the Slav 
 mind. Of course Peter, who was anything but a mystic, 
 exploited them for political ends, but quite apart from his 
 last will, which may or may not be genuine, he, like that 
 remarkable throned adventuress, Catherine II., half a 
 century later, must undoubtedly be regarded as one of the 
 founders of Panslavism. Thus we have the beginning of 
 that strong tendency in the Imperial house of Russia to 
 dabble in private life in new-fangled philosophy and adven- 
 turous Western theories, while enforcing a ruthless system 
 of autocracy — ^to support extreme reaction in Europe, and 
 yet at the same time to champion the oppressed races of 
 the Balkan Peninsula. Throughout we can distinguish 
 two currents, the one genuinely Panslav in the literal 
 sense of the word, the other more and more Panrussian or 
 Muscovite, looking on aU the other Slav races as, in the 
 words of Puskin, " mere rivulets, aU flowing into the 
 Russian sea." In this latter current religious motives 
 
PANSLAVISM 215 
 
 played a leading part and dominated the so-called Slavo- 
 phils, the inevitable and natural expression of that world 
 of autocracy which, in spite of Peter's reformers, had 
 remained impenetrable to all external influences save those 
 of German officialdom. 
 
 The Slav idea, then, under the Russian Slavophils of 
 last century — men like Ejrejevsky and Homiakov — assumed 
 a peculiar Orthodox form. Arguing that the West had 
 misunderstood the whole meaning of Christianity and dis- 
 torted it in the light of the Roman world-state, they went 
 on to declare the influence of the West to have been fatal 
 to all the Slav races save the Russian. They, unlike the 
 Romans, had had no culture before they accepted Chris- 
 tianity, and therefore accepted it more easily and kept it 
 purer. They seem to have ignored the patent fact that 
 on their own showing the Russians received Christianity 
 from the Greeks, who possessed the most complete culture 
 of all. Constantine Aksakov went so far as to uphold the 
 theory that while all other states had been built up on 
 violence, hatred, and serfdom, Russia alone is based on 
 concord, freedom, and peace, on mutual love and trust 
 between Tsar and people. Secure in this castle of his 
 own imagination, he rejected Europe with opprobrium. 
 Above all, Ivan Aksakov and Katkov became apostles of 
 the idea that the CathoHc Slavs must be rescued from 
 the corruption of the West, and thus restored to health. 
 Katkov, in particular, enjoyed a very extensive influence 
 in Russia at the height of the reaction : by some he was 
 lauded to the skies, by others denounced with vitriolic 
 abuse. It is frankly difficult for Western minds to compre- 
 hend his strange infatuation for Byzantine culture : for it 
 may be affirmed without hesitation, that what we admire 
 to-day in the religious spirit of Russia is derived, not from 
 
216 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Byzantium — so false, so cruel, so formalist, so corrupt — 
 but from the fervent natural religion of the Slavonic soul. 
 
 Katkov and Aksakov, who with all their faults were 
 men of ideas and imagination, were translated into common 
 jingoism by Danilevski in his book, Russia and Europe, 
 which preached the modern doctrine of " sacred egoism " 
 and absolute indifference to everything in Europe. " We 
 must," he said, " finally abandon all solidarity with Euro- 
 pean interests, and only regard those as our true allies who 
 can be useful to us in our one and unchanging aim " — 
 namely, Constantinople and the East. These exaggerations 
 produced the equally absurd counter- theories invented by 
 the Poles under the stress of brutal oppression, that there 
 are two Russias, one Slav and one Turanian, and that the 
 Russian Government represents the Turanian. Thus we 
 have the strange result that the Russian Conservatives 
 preached a return to Muscovy and its ideas as the only 
 hope for Russia, while the word Muscovite came to be 
 apphed and accepted as a slight in the same sort of way as 
 the name Papist for Catholics ; and further, that British 
 Conservatives swallowed whole this crude anti-Slav doctrine, 
 and thus became the tools of German Conservatives, who 
 saw the victory of Reaction in the aUenation of Russia from 
 the West. This ultra-Russian nationalism, which found 
 such brutal expression in the reign of Alexander III., corre- 
 sponds to the blatant type of Jingoism which prevailed in 
 most countries towards the close of the nineteenth century. 
 The balance was redressed by the half -mystical writings of 
 Vladimir Soloviev, who pointed out that what was rotten in 
 Europe was its non-Christian element, and that the essential 
 need was not to uproot Catholicism, but, if possible, to 
 reconcile East and West, as complementing each other. 
 
 It was, however, not in Russia, but among the Slovaks 
 
PANSLAVISM 217 
 
 that the first modern exponent of Panslavism in its ideal 
 form arose. During the first half of the nineteenth century 
 Jan KoUar, who was clergyman of the Slovak Lutheran 
 Church in Budapest, wrote two epoch-making books : a 
 long epic poem, The Daughter of Slava, in which he sang the 
 glories of Slavdom, and created in imitation of Dante a 
 mythical Slav Olympus and Hades, where the friends and 
 enemies of the Slav race are picturesquely grouped, and a 
 short essay advocating "The Literary Reciprocity of all 
 Slavs." His appeal for closer intercourse among the 
 various branches of the race, the fervour with which he 
 argued that the feeling of Slav solidarity must transcend 
 all political and rehgious difierences, awakened a resounding 
 echo throughout the Slav world. His equally famous con- 
 temporary, Safafik, also a Slovak by birth, published a 
 history of " Slav Antiquities," which will always remain 
 the foundation-stone of all study of Slav origins, whether 
 in the matter of language, geography, or race. As Kollar 
 himseK pointed out, it was natural enough that this idea 
 of reciprocity should have struck deep roots and spread 
 most rapidly among the Slovaks, who had hitherto pro- 
 duced little of their own in literature, and out of the isola- 
 tion of neglect and oppression " were the first to stretch 
 out their hands to embrace aU Slavs." The labours of the 
 pioneers were supplemented by the great scholars and 
 philologists of Prague, whose researches paved the way for 
 that intellectual and political renaissance of Bohemia which 
 has been one of the most remarkable incidents in the whole 
 nationaUst movement of modern times. 
 
 In the year of revolution, 1848, Prague instantly leapt 
 into prominence as a focus of Slav ideas, and it was there 
 that the first Slavonic congress was held. Under the presi- 
 dency of the great Czech historian, Palacky, delegates 
 
218 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 assembled from Poland, Serbia, Croatia, the Slovak dis- 
 tricts, and even Russia. It was the answer of the Slav 
 world to the convocation of the German Federal Diet at 
 Frankfurt. It is true that its results were even more in- 
 conclusive than those of the rival assembly. There was 
 no sure political foundation upon which to build, and the 
 various sections among the delegates had widely divergent 
 aims and aspirations. In the words of a French historian, 
 " Austria was for some a gaol, and for others a harbour of 
 refuge, and each interpreted principles in the light of his 
 need and passions " : and it is curious to note that the 
 idea of Panslav federation in its most advanced form was 
 urged most strongly by the very men who were most 
 hostile to the " Slavophils " of Russia. But however incon- 
 clusive the congress may have seemed, an important step 
 had been taken in the path towards mutual intercourse, 
 without which all Panslav dreams must remain mere 
 platonic vapourings, or, worse still, the cloak for Imperialist 
 designs of conquest. 
 
 The Panslav Congress, which was held at Moscow in 
 1867, was attended by many Western Slavs, notably the 
 great Czech leaders, Palacky, Rieger, and Gregr. But their 
 visit proved actually detrimental to their own immediate 
 cause ; for, on the one hand, it provided Austria with a 
 fresh excuse for the famous policy of " shoving the Slavs 
 against the wall," which found expression in the Austro- 
 Hungarian Ausgleich of the same year ; and, on the other 
 hand, a bad impression was created in many quarters by 
 the fact that the organisers of the congress represented 
 extreme reaction alike in Russia and in Europe, and had 
 been foremost in their approval of the brutal repression of 
 Poland only four years earlier. In those days political 
 passions still obscured what is so obvious to the world 
 
PANSLAVISM 219 
 
 to-day, that a system which at one and the same time could 
 advocate the Panslav idea and the impossibility of any 
 understanding between Eussia and Poland until both the 
 Polish nobility and the Catholic Church had been rooted 
 out, was obviously bankrupt and doomed to failure. The 
 Polish question, then, was the real reason why so long an 
 interval elapsed before the next congress could be held. 
 It remained, in the words of the leading Russophil of 
 Bohemia, Dr. Kramaf, whoni, in June 1916, the butchers 
 of Vienna condemned to death, " an ever bleeding wound on 
 the Slav body." Since the opening of the new century, 
 and especially since the Japanese War and the Russian 
 revolution, a new tendency became noticeable under the 
 name of *' Neo-Slavism." The root idea of its most eager 
 advocates, notably of Kramaf, was the reconcihation of 
 Poles and Russians as the keystone to all progress in 
 Slavonic questions ; and this was the chief note of the Con- 
 gress held at Prague in 1908. Considerations of internal 
 policy, both in Russia and elsewhere, made it difficult to 
 reach any concrete results. But it is probably true to say 
 that more progress has been made in the direction of mutual 
 intercourse and understanding between the various Slavs 
 in the ten years imi^ediately preceding the war than in any 
 previous decade. The events of the Balkan War gave a 
 tremendous impetus to the feeling of Slav solidarity. 
 Agram, Laibach, Prague, even to some degree Cracow, 
 greeted the victory of the Balkan League as their own ; of 
 Moscow and Petrograd it is unnecessary to speak. Students 
 of nationahty in Europe are too apt to confine their atten- 
 tion to Italy and Germany. Even to-day it i^ not yet fully 
 understood to what an extent the national movement has 
 revivified and transformed the Slavs, and yet it is only 
 necessary to compare the Slav nations of Austria and the 
 
220 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Balkans as they are to-day with what they were a hundred 
 years ago, in order to realise that nationality among the 
 Slavs is like an inroUing tide. If their emancipation is 
 one of the results of this gigantic clash of arms, the misery 
 and suffering of Europe will at least have a compensation. 
 Once more Russia, despite the many shortcomings and 
 imperfections of which her enemies are never tired of re- 
 minding us, is siding with the future, as surely as Germany, 
 with all her marvellous energy and organisation, is siding 
 with the past. 
 
 The Panslav ideal has been mellowed by time. To- 
 day it is realised more and more that it can never be 
 achieved upon a purely Russian or on a purely Orthodox 
 basis, and that, even from the Russian point of view, such 
 a consummation would be undesirable. Five out of the 
 six Slavonic races whose fate depends upon the issue of 
 this war — the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, and Slovenes 
 — are overwhelmingly Catholic (the second and third with 
 a small Protestant minority), while the Western portion 
 of the Ukraine is fervently Uniate. The indispensable 
 preliminary to any solution of the problems affecting these 
 races is the estabhshment, not merely of toleration, but of 
 absolute rehgious equahty. 
 
 The rival tendencies inside the Panslav idea may be 
 summed up in three phrases by three great Russians. 
 " The Slavophils," wrote the ultra-conservative Ivan 
 Aksakov, " regard Orthodoxy as the source of Russian 
 nationality : it constitutes the fundamental principles of 
 its historic life, which are a higher contribution to civilisa- 
 tion than those possessed by Western Europe." Alexander 
 Herzen, probably the greatest of the advanced school of 
 Russian thought, declared with equal emphasis that " When 
 the hour of the Slavs shall sound, their idea will correspond 
 
PANSLAVISM 221 
 
 to that of revolutionary Europe." But as usual, Dostoi- 
 evsM raises the matter to a higher plane when he writes of 
 " the plan to unite the whole of Slavdom under the wings 
 of Russia. And this union, not for the appropriation of 
 others' property, not for violence or for the annihilation 
 of the various Slav individualities by the Russian Colossus, 
 but in order to renew them and bring them into their due 
 relation to Europe and to humanity — to give them at last 
 the possibiHty of peaceful Hfe and of recovery after count- 
 less centuries of suffering, and when they feel their new 
 strength, of adding their bundle to the granary of the human 
 spirit and saying their word in civili^tion. Of course you 
 may laugh as much as you please at these ' illusions ' of 
 mine about Russia's destiny, but tell me this : Do not all 
 Russians desire the liberation and exaltation of the Slav 
 on this very basis, for their full personal freedom and for 
 the resurrection of their souls, and not to win them poUtic- 
 ally for Russia and through them to strengthen Russia 
 politically, as Europe sometimes suspects 1 " 
 
 A word or two may be added as to the manner in which 
 the Panslav dreamers express their theories in practice. 
 Dostoievski, in the very passage quoted above, breathing 
 as it does conciUation and tolerance, adds the phrase, " It 
 goes without saying, that with this end in view, Constan- 
 tinople must sooner or later be ours." Constantinople Ues 
 at the root of all Russian realities, national, political, re- 
 ligious, and economic ; and it is a fortunate fact that our 
 statesmen should realise that Constantinople in the hands 
 of Russia is the surest guarantee of peace between the 
 British and Slavonic worlds, and an impregnable barrier 
 to German aggression in the Near and Middle East. 
 
 Danilevsky, a typical contemporary of our own Jingoes 
 and a believer in " sacred egoism " as the sole basis of 
 
222 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 foreign policy, advocated a kind of loose Confederation of 
 Eastern Europe, consisting of the following eight units : 
 (1) The Russian Empire including Galicia ; (2) Bohemia, 
 Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia ; (3) Jugoslavia ; (4) Bulgaria ; 
 (5) Roumania ; (Q) Greece ; (7) Hungary ; (8) Constantin- 
 ople, as a separate province. The fatal and obvious flaw 
 in this settlement is that it ignores Poland and the root 
 fact that the Panslav ideal can never be achieved so long . 
 as Russian and Pole remain unreconciled. 
 
 More than enough has been heard of the notorious Pan- 
 german General Bernhardi. Far too little has been heard 
 of the Panslav General, Fadejev, whose words, written in 
 1869, are full of prophetic insight. He starts with the 
 assumption that for Russia the Eastern question cannot 
 be decided by a war in the Balkans, but only on Russia's 
 Western frontier. "The Eastern question can only be 
 solved in Vienna. Austria is like a loaded cannon, which 
 may not go off for centuries, if the sparks are not applied. 
 But for her to allow a solution in the Russian sense would be 
 suicide." " The existence of free Slav kingdoms bound- 
 ing with enslaved Slav countries is impossible. How can 
 Austria allow a second Slav Piedmont, whose influence 
 would not be confined to a corner of her Empire, but would 
 extend to its centre ? Austria has only two paths — either 
 the Slavs south of the river Save (i.e. Serbia) must share 
 the fate of the Hungarian Slavs, or the Slavs north of the 
 Save must attain the position of Serbia to-day." Here, 
 then, we find, in 1869, a Russian summing up in a few clear 
 phrases the situation of 1916. Either free Serbia and Mon- 
 tenegro must become conquered provinces of Austria- 
 Hungary and fodder for the Drang nach Osten, or they 
 must unite the whole Jugoslav race in a single State. 
 
 The second prophecy is not less remarkable. '' In re- 
 
PANSLAVISM 223 
 
 lation to Kussia, Hungary forms the advance-guard of 
 Germany. . . .The Germans see that they alone, without 
 the help of the Magyars, can never finish with the Danu- 
 bian Slavs. ... If Austria-Hungary follows firmly on 
 these lines, Germany will stand up for Austria just as much 
 as for her own property." This is being literally fulfilled 
 to-day in the course of what is at least as much a Magyar 
 war as a German war. It was the racial tyranny of the 
 Magyars, exercised upon the unhappy Slavs of Hungary 
 . and the Eastern Adriatic, which kept the Northern Balkans 
 in a ferment, checkmated the better elements in Austria, 
 and embittered the relations of the Dual Monarchy with 
 Russia and Serbia. Just as it was Budapest in collusion 
 with Vienna which plunged Serbia and Bulgaria into the 
 fratricidal war of 1913, so it was the deliberate policy of 
 Budapest in collusion with Berlin which precipitated the 
 present conflict. 
 
 Yet another prophecy of Fadejev is to-day in process of 
 fulfilment. " For Austria, the PoHsh question is a light- 
 ning-conductor for the Eastern question." Its true solu- 
 tion is to recognise the Poles as a Slav people with a right 
 to its existence, and to Russian help in re-uniting its scat- 
 tered portions. On the other hand Poland has, in effect, 
 the choice of becoming the younger brother of the Russian 
 nation, or a mere German province. Scarcely less inter- 
 esting is his further assertion that France has a choice 
 between Russian rule and German rule in Europe : '' On 
 the day when France realises that the fortunes of Poland 
 are inseparably bound up with the triumph of the Slav 
 idea, the heart of France will be with us." 
 
 There is only one point upon which this uncanny gift of 
 prophecy failed him, and the fault lies at the door of perfide 
 Albion. Writing in 1869, he did not expect the sympathy 
 
224 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of England for Ids Slavonic dreams, and who shall blame 
 him ? That was long before Gladstone and Salisbury 
 between them redeemed the deadly errors of Disraeli. It 
 is the privilege of our generation to prove him wrong on 
 this one point, and, as loyal and immovable alHes of Russia, 
 to help him to realise the rest of the Slav programme. 
 
 One of our own statesmen in an inspired phrase con- 
 trasted the attitude of Prussia and of Russia to the claims 
 of nationality and sentiment. While the " higher civilisa- 
 tion " merely answered that " the liberty of the Bulgarian 
 peasants was not worth the Hfe of a single Pomeranian 
 soldier . . . the rude barbarians of the North sent their 
 sons by the thousand to die for Bulgarian freedom." 
 Prussia since she was constituted a kingdom has done 
 nothing for the freedom of her neighbours and much for 
 their enslavement. Russia, like all great empires, our own 
 included, has blots upon her 'scutcheon ; but nothing can 
 ever efface the historical fact that time after time she has 
 gone to war for the cause of her Slav kinsmen or her Ortho- 
 dox co-rehgionists, and that the democratic countries of 
 South-Eastern Europe owe a great part of their liberties to 
 the efforts of Russia and her rulers. History has linked 
 Russia and Britain in the task of reconstructing Europe 
 upon the sole basis which offers any hope of lasting peace, 
 the principle of nationality and the rights of small nations. 
 Poland, Bohemia, and Jugoslavia — these three together 
 form the keystone to the arch of European liberty. With- 
 out the emancipation of the Southern Slavs and the Czecho- 
 slovaks from German aggression, Austrian inertia, and 
 Magyar tyranny, without the reunion of Poland and its 
 reconciliation with Russia, there can be no regeneration of 
 the European commonwealth, no permanent settlement, 
 no durable peace after the horrors of the Great War. 
 
THE MUSINGS OF A SLAVOPHIL ^ 
 
 " Let us observe them at this decisive moment," writes 
 Taine in his memorable description of the Terror. " I do 
 not believe that any country or century has witnessed such 
 a contrast between a nation and its rulers. By a series of 
 inverted purges the best, not the worst, has been eHminated, 
 and faction has been reduced to its dregs. Of the vast wave 
 set in motion in 1789 nothing remains but the foam and 
 the scum. All else has been rejected or has dropped out — 
 first the upper class, clergy, nobility, and parliamentarians ; 
 then the middle class, industrialists, merchants, and bour- 
 geois ; then the elite of the lower class, small proprietors, 
 farmers, and artisans ; in short, aU the notables of every 
 profession, condition, or trade, aU that possessed capital, 
 income, position, esteem, education, a mental and moral 
 culture. To make up the picture, there was in June 1793 
 hardly anything left save the shifting workmen, the vaga- 
 bonds of to^^n and country, a degraded and dangerous mob, 
 the outcasts, the depraved, the abnormal, and in Paris, 
 from whence they gave orders to the whole of France, their 
 group — a tiny minority — found its recruits even in that 
 human refuse which infests every capital." 
 
 The great past of France seems to be throwing its shadows 
 upon the moving screen of Russia. And yet we do not 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. vi. No. 73, March 7, 1918. 
 
 225 Q 
 
226 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 need to be reminded that no historical parallel is ever 
 exact. If, alas ! Lenin and his comrades have insanely 
 thrown away the weapons which lay in their hand, they 
 have directly reversed the methods of Danton or of Carnot. 
 The heart of Eussia is sound, but her body has succumbed 
 to the asphyxiating gas generated in the unhealthy atmo- 
 sphere of Tsarism, by foreign intrigue and by internal 
 corruption and unrest. But the plain man in the West 
 knows but httle of causes and judges by results. To a few 
 fantastic demagogues the action of the Bolseviks in destroy- 
 ing the Russian army and making the Germans a present . 
 of its equipment is a superb gesture inaugurating a new 
 era ; to the plain man it is simply translated into fresh 
 bloodshed and suffering for his own kith and Idn. In his 
 anger and disappointment he only sees the prostrate body 
 of his former ally ; he forgets the superhuman efforts to 
 which Russia's exhaustion and in large part his own safety 
 are due. 
 
 The ideas which underlie the new dispensation in Eussia 
 are neither new nor Russian. As in the case of the doctrine 
 of self-determination, they often contain a sound kernel, 
 borrowed as they are from the greatest progressive thinkers 
 of modern times. The fault Hes not with them but with 
 their latest exponents, and consists in a crude attempt to 
 blend elements which nature has resolved to keep apart. 
 The militant ideahsm of Mazzini does not accord with the 
 semi- Christian nihilism of Tolstoi, and both ahke are 
 fermented by an admixture of Marx, Proudhon, and 
 Nietzsche. Spiritual ideas cannot be promoted on a 
 materiahst basiSc From the alliance of Eussian atheist 
 and cosmopoHtan Jew there is bred a mere spirit of nega- 
 tion — der Geist der stets verneint. In the history of ideas, 
 
THE MUSINGS OF A SLAVOPHIL 227 
 
 as in workaday politics, extremes tend to meet, and birds 
 of a feather are found in seemingly opposite camps. It is 
 no accident that the wheel which turned full circle from 
 brutal absolutism to social iconoclasm often swings back 
 to its starting-point. Mars has assuredly reduced the 
 philosophers to silence, or we might long ere this have been 
 reminded of the natural affinity between the Superman of 
 Power and the Superman of Anarchy, between the essential 
 dogmas of Nietzsche and of Bakunin. 
 
 The moral degeneracy of the Tsarist system, the foul 
 corruption of the bureaucracy, the deplorable weakness of 
 the middle class, had led to a progressive paralysis of the 
 State. Deeds were replaced by an endless stream of words 
 until the seething cauldron overflowed. Lenin and Trotski 
 have been brought to the surface by the Titanic conflict of 
 Tsardom and Junkerdom, of which the more efficient has 
 triumphed, and is now marshalling its last forces against 
 what still stands between it and world dominion. But the 
 Bolsevik Revolution has thrown to the winds the ideals 
 which inspired all previous democratic revolutions. It 
 derides the representative principle, it cares nothing for 
 equality or fraternity. Instead of challenging monopoly 
 and privilege wherever it can be assailed, enforcing equality 
 of opportunity for all and paying tribute to the power that 
 rests with knowledge, it has deliberately inverted the foul 
 principle of autocracy, against which its leaders had fought 
 so long and gallant a fight. Instead of the abolition of 
 class and caste, we are merely to have one corrupt class 
 domination substituted for another. The autocracy, the 
 aristocracy, the bourgeoisie are to be rooted out, there is 
 to be a merciless war upon culture in all its prevailing 
 forms, and all power is to be concentrated in the hands of 
 the proletariat. The class war, that most accursed of all 
 
228 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 doctrines, is proclaimed as the ideal of society. Thus Lenin 
 and his followers seek to apply to the struggle of the classes 
 the very methods which the Germans employ in the struggle 
 of the nations. The question of power, die Machtfrage, 
 resolves itself into the elemental threat of red-clawed 
 Nature, Ichfresse dich oder dufrisst mich. The true ideals 
 of the social revolution are equality and co-operation, the 
 effacement of all social distinctions save those of inborn 
 merit. Those who act upon the rival principle of ote-toi 
 que je m^y mette in its extreme Russian form, would have 
 us revert to a state of nature where every man's hand is 
 against his neighbour's ; and there is no escape from the 
 conclusion that the active promoters of such theories are 
 enemies of the human race. 
 
 That certain of the general principles proclaimed by the 
 Bolseviks at Brest command the sympathy of all true 
 democrats is simply another way of saying that, in theory, 
 it is possible to combine sound principles in foreign policy 
 with a supremely mischievous policy at home — though 
 recent events have shown how rapidly the one reacts upon 
 the other in practice. But public opinion in a rash out- 
 burst of sentiment has assigned to Lenin and Trotski the 
 credit for principles which they have merely taken over 
 from their predecessors. The doctrine of self-determination 
 is essentially that of Mazzini under a newer name, and rests 
 upon Rousseau and other forerunners ; every student of 
 Austrian, Hungarian, and Balkan affairs knows that, in its 
 German garb of Selhsthestimmungsrecht, it has lain at the 
 root of national claims in Central Europe for two generations 
 past. 
 
 Their calculations are essentially those of va hanque. As 
 the German authorities were quick to reaUse, the Bolseviks 
 staked everything upon a sympathetic movement in 
 
THE MUSINGS OF A SLAVOPHIL 229 
 
 Grermany, but, as a German Socialist organ bitterly reminds 
 them, their intimate knowledge of German internal condi- 
 tions has not saved them from the most absurd delusions. 
 In Austria, it is quite true, Russian revolutionary doctrine 
 has spread far and wide, but this is in part the result of 
 Slavonic telepathy, and in part of the logical position 
 adopted by the Russian delegates in the initial stages of 
 the Brest negotiations. But the contrast presented by 
 their subsequent moral collapse is not calculated to en- 
 hance their prestige in the eyes of the central proletariats, 
 who well know how formidable are the defences which 
 have to be stormed before a German revolution can be 
 effective. 
 
 To Western opinion the inconsistencies of the Bolseviks 
 are even less likely to appeal. After deliberately destroying 
 a splendid fighting machine, they scream when they find 
 the enemy's " knees upon their chest." After addressing 
 the Germans in the menacing language of a conqueror : 
 " You will not dare to send your army against the Russian 
 Working Men's Revolution, the standard-bearer of the 
 international proletariat " — they abjectly consent to sign 
 whatever is laid before them. One day sees the impreg- 
 nable fortress of Dvinsk surrendered without a blow, the 
 next a summons to every man to entrench the capital. 
 But, after all, if this were the only indictment against the 
 Bolseviks, it would still be possible to find some material 
 for an apology in the disintegration, exhaustion, and famine 
 which already prevailed when they seized the reins of 
 power. ^What no aniount of phrases can palliate is the 
 manner m which, since their accession to power, they have 
 set every democratic principle at defiance. In their viola- 
 tion of press freedom they merely use the assault upon 
 the bourgeoisie as a convenient pretext. In reality their 
 
230 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 factional hate is turned no less against such tried revolu- 
 tionaries as Maxim Gorki, Burtsev, and Plehanov than 
 against the reactionaries of the old regime. If freedom 
 of opinion is hampered, the representative principle 
 is openly defied. The Constituent Assembly, the most 
 representative body which Russia has ever seen, was 
 brutally sent about its business as soon as it became 
 clear that not all the control and pressure of the Bolsevik 
 Government could secure it a majority. Freedom was 
 proclaimed as the goal of all nations, but it must be 
 the Freiheit die ICH meine pilloried by the once radical 
 Simplicissimus. 
 
 Even the principle of self-determination, seemingly the 
 central dogma of the Bolsevik creed, has been interpreted 
 in the same arbitrary fashion. The Ukrainian Rada was 
 recognised by Trotski as an independent government ; but, 
 as soon as it dared to act upon those independent rights and 
 to foUow Trotski's example in negotiating with the Germans, 
 he withdrew his recognition and set up a sham counter- 
 government at Harkov. The Ukraine, then, is free, but 
 only free to act according to the Smolny Institute's good 
 pleasure. Roumania, too, is entitled to self-determination ; 
 but if her people decline to eject the dynasty and to recog- 
 nise as its lawful government Trotski's creation, the so- 
 called " High Collegium " (not one member of which bears 
 a Roumanian name), war is declared upon her by the new 
 despots of Petrograd, and her government, like the Rada, 
 is placed at the mercy of the Central Powers. Bessarabia, 
 too, is to determine its own fate, but when the ultra-demo- 
 cratic Assembly of Kisinjov invites the assistance of the 
 Roumanian Army its wishes and decisions are not listened 
 to by the Bolseviks. Finally, Finland is to enjoy self- 
 determination, but when it declares itself an independent 
 
THE MUSINGS OF A SLAVOPHIL 231 
 
 republic the Bolseviks decline to recognise it. Not merely 
 are its requests for the withdrawal of Russian troops from 
 Finnish territory evaded or refused, but these troops are 
 encouraged to take part in a civil war whose ferocity 
 recalls the evil days of La Vendee. 
 
 The Bolsevik campaign against secret treaties and par- 
 titions, against all that " the Old Diplomacy " denotes, 
 belongs to quite another category ; indeed, it is this which 
 has won sympathy for Trotski among many who are keenly 
 conscious of the irreparable harm he is dealing to the cause 
 of democracy in other directions. But there is one capital 
 point on which criticism has rarely passed beyond the stage 
 of generalities. That the Bolseviks, in repudiating the 
 Pact of London, have done deadly injury to the Western 
 peoples (to their proletariats no less than to their bour- 
 geoisies) is cruelly patent to all ; but its consequences are 
 only slowly dawning upon us. As a writer in the Round 
 Table has pointed out, there never was a treaty which ought 
 to have been more secure against repudiation than that by 
 which the Entente Powers in September 1914 closed the 
 door to the idea of separate peace. And yet it was not the 
 military despotism of Prussia which converted it into a 
 mere scrap of paper, but the first government of modern 
 times which claimed to speak exclusively in the interests 
 of the proletariat. To those of us who cling to the distant 
 ideal of a League of Nations as politically the one hope of 
 salvation from a future of gloom and terror, this is the most 
 disturbing fact in all recent developments. For if Bolsevism 
 were reaUy free to extend its principles of repudiation 
 to the world at large, we should be driven to despair of 
 harmony and mutual faith .among the nations, as of an 
 impossible ideal. 
 
 Under stress of war and invasion Russia has reached 
 
232 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 that gloomy period which, in France, followed the collapse 
 of the Terror. Earlier in the great revolution men had 
 rallied to the ideas of freedom and the constitution ; then, 
 as the tide rose, to the doctrine of equality, fraternity, and 
 the republic. " But at the beginning of the Directory," 
 writes Mignet, " there was belief in nothing. In the great 
 shipwreck of parties all had been lost, both the virtue of 
 the bourgeoisie and the virtue of the people." Two centuries 
 of autocracy and corruption have deprived the Russian 
 middle class as a class of all true sense of civic responsibility 
 and sapped its moral stamina. With a few noble excep- 
 tions it shrank back at the moment of supreme crisis, and 
 the decision passed to men lacking in every quality of 
 constructive statesmanship, and not even capable of up- 
 holding the principles which they so loudly profess. With 
 Victor Hugo, who provides a phrase for every turn of the 
 revolutionary wheel, we may fairly ask : — 
 
 Ofifre-t-on au progres, toujours trop a I'^troit, 
 
 Quelque elargissement d' horizon et de route ? 
 
 Non ; des mines ; rien. Soit. Quant a moi, je doute 
 
 Qu'on soit quitte pour dii^e au peuple murmiirant : 
 
 " Ce qu'on fait est petit, mais ce qu'on brise est grand." 
 
 • • • • » • 
 
 In repudiating the Bolseviks and their disintegrating 
 doctrine, we are less than ever tempted to repudiate Russia 
 and the Slavonic spirit. It was Dostoievski who placed on 
 the title - page of his hterary masterpiece the words : 
 *' Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
 abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 
 We cannot see the harvest, but we know that it will surely 
 ripen, and that Russia, though for a passing moment 
 inarticulate, still has a message for the world. Ex Oriente 
 Lux — the old saying seems of late to have exercised a strange 
 
THE MUSINGS OF A SLAVOPHIL 233 
 
 fascination on German statesmen and journalists. Can it 
 be that they are dimly conscious of its inward meaning, 
 that they realise the tremendous impact of ideas surging 
 westwards over the frontiers which legitimacy and reaction 
 once proudly erected, but which their own watchdogs, the 
 Hindenburgs and the Linsingens, have finally overthrown 
 in something far more than a military sense ? They have 
 destroyed their old enemy Tsarism, knowing in their heart 
 of hearts that it was — outside their own borders — the one 
 sure bulwark of the old order. To-day their triumph pales 
 before the white light of the Russian revolutionary dawn. 
 They may restore the broken image to its throne, and for a 
 time they may drive unwilling worshippers to the temple ; 
 but morally they are already vanquished, however long the 
 end may be delayed. While Tsardom survived it was 
 always possible to confuse the true issues of the war by 
 balancing rival designs of Imperialistic conquest. But the 
 New Russia, giving to her aUies a lead which none of them 
 dare decline to follow, has actually applied to the victims 
 of the Old Russia that principle of self-determination 
 which is becoming more and more the charter of free 
 humanity. Henceforth Germany has the choice between 
 that principle and the rival principle of conquest — that 
 fatal lodestone whose reefs are strewn with the wreckage 
 of history. 
 
 The Russian Revolution is one of the greatest events in 
 human history ; and just as we do not idly curse the ocean 
 because it destroys a breakwater, so we need not confuse 
 the revolution with the froth upon its waves. France came 
 to her senses after the orgies of the Terror. Even Germany 
 will some day reject her false gods and return to the tradi- 
 tions of the splendid past. And are we to despair of 
 Russia ? The convulsions through which she is passing 
 
234 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 are not the death-agony but the first physical reactions from 
 the elixir of life. The Slavonic spirit will come to its own. 
 Set free from the triple plagues of Tsarism, Prussianism, and 
 Bolsevism, it will teach the world the Slav lessons of justice, 
 humility, and compassion. 
 
HAVE THE ALLIES A RUSSIAN 
 
 POLICY ? 1 
 
 The temporary collapse of Kussia confronts the Allies with 
 one of the most gigantic problems in history ; and it is not 
 to be wondered at if the Allied Governments have shown 
 hesitation in evolving a concrete policy where the best 
 minds of Russia herself have been so obviously at a loss. 
 But the wellnigh superhuman difficulty of the task does 
 not absolve us from the obligation to face it. Chaos and 
 anarchy will not endure for ever, and the future fate of 
 Europe depends in no small measure upon the question 
 through what elements in Russia order will be restored and 
 to which group of belligerents these elements will look for 
 practical support. Alike in the interests of Russia and of 
 that common cause which — let us never forget it — her 
 valour and self-sacrifice saved from grave peril in the early 
 years of the war, prompt action is needed to provide a 
 rallying-point for the forces of true progress and patriotism 
 in Russia. Every fresh delay enables the Germans to estab- 
 lish themselves more firmly among the border nations, and 
 to lay their plans for political isolation and powerful 
 economic penetration. 
 
 Eighteen months ago Germany's pohtical aims centred 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. vii. No. 83, May 16, 1918. 
 
 235 
 
236 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 round the watcliword " Berlin-Bagdad," and our main 
 efforts were then devoted to exposing the dangers with 
 which that programme threatened the British Empire and 
 the free Western democracies. Since then the balance has 
 shifted, and the Germans, with that political adaptability 
 which so often counteracts their more obvious qualities of 
 brutality and tactlessness, are actively engaged in working 
 out new routes which shall lead them to the same ultimate 
 goal. British public opinion, after a bovine tolerance of 
 diplomatic blunders in the Near East but for which the 
 war might long ago have been over, at last realised — late 
 in the day, but not irretrievably late — ^the Asiatic and 
 African possibilities of the German Drang nach Osten. The 
 events of the war have sharpened its perceptions, and 
 to-day it should be swift to realise the new form assumed 
 by German aggression in the East. While the defaitistes 
 of London and Paris still vainly endeavour to restrict our 
 vision to Belgium and Picardy — even to the exclusion of 
 Alsace and Trieste — all those who are capable of logical 
 reasoning in foreign policy are fully conscious of what, for 
 want of a better phrase, may be described as '* the Black 
 Sea Danger." The Germans, finding the road to Cairo, 
 Mecca, and Basra blocked, are busily promoting their plans 
 for converting the Black Sea into a German lake. With 
 Roumania reduced to a position of hopeless strategic and 
 economic vassalage, and the mouths of the Danube thus 
 secured ; with the Ukraine in still more direct dependence 
 upon Berlin and played off against what is left of Russia on 
 the one hand and what may be allowed to exist of Poland 
 on the other ; with the Crimea in military occupation and 
 the possibihty of Russian naval enterprise thereby frus- 
 trated ; with German-led Turkish armies completing the 
 extermination of the Armenians and pushing onwards 
 
HAVE THE ALLIES A RUSSIAN POLICY ? 237 
 
 tkrougk Batoum and Kars ; with all this, the Germans 
 calculate that they have laid the train for. a vast design of 
 political penetration of which the Caucasus will be the 
 pivot, and which will give them access to Turkestan, Persia, 
 and the Indian Ocean. The torrent which had been 
 successfully dammed in Palestine and Mesopotamia is 
 flowing by roundabout channels which lead no less surely 
 towards the Indian frontier. 
 
 It is quite true that these are but tendencies of the 
 future ; but the whole secret of constructive statesman- 
 ship is to detect and, where necessary, to frustrate such 
 tendencies before they can assume definite form. Those 
 who a year ago could have foreseen Brest-Litovsk and 
 framed a Russian policy accordingly would doubtless 
 to-day enjoy a supernatural reputation for political fore- 
 sight ; but surely this country is not so bankrupt in brains 
 as to be incapable of thinking out in advance the probable 
 consequences of the spread of German influence between 
 the Caspian and the Indus. A generation ago we allowed 
 ourselves to be deluded by exaggerated fears of the Russian 
 menace to India. To-day we must not plunge into the 
 opposite extreme and ignore the far more serious clouds 
 already visible on the far horizon. 
 
 If these dangers are to be met, the first and indispensable 
 preliminary is to set Russia on her feet again — if not to 
 make her an active combatant, then at any rate to arrest 
 the process of anarchic disintegration which, under German 
 connivance, is eating into the very vitals of the Russian 
 state. How is this regeneration to be accomphshed, and 
 what party in Russia is to supply the motive force ? Where 
 all else is uncertain, one definite fact emerges. Last 
 November we wrote as follows : " For us a Bolsevik Govern- 
 ment is something inconceivable ; it is, in fact, a contradic- 
 
238 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 tion in terms, and in any event we can liave no truck with 
 it." What has happened in the interval only confirms us 
 in this view. Since the fall of Kerenski there has been 
 nothing in Russia which can fairly be described as a govern- 
 ment, unless political phrases are to be twisted into entirely 
 novel meanings. Acting on the anarchic principle " La 
 propriete c'est le vol/' the Boise viks have, on the vastest of 
 scales, substituted Theft for Property. Not merely have 
 they proved themselves to be a purely destructive force, 
 to which all the ideals and principles that we stand for are 
 sheer anathema, but they have long since thrown to the 
 winds all the principles which they themselves proclaimed 
 so loudly. Their whole regime is a barefaced negation of 
 Democracy, a defiance of the representative principle, a 
 cynical refusal to trust the people. The effete Tsarist 
 regime collapsed by reason of its inward corruption ; last 
 November it was replaced by a clique no whit less autocratic. 
 The Prussian Junker General, von Hoffmann, was speaking 
 the simple truth when he twitted the Russian delegates 
 at Brest with the autocratic methods of Lenin and Trotski. 
 These fanatics, as every one in real touch with their move- 
 ment before the war was fully aware, have always had a 
 supreme contempt for the Russian peasant masses, and 
 regard them, as mere fuel for the furnace in which the 
 despotism of an international proletariat was to be 
 forged. 
 
 Let us have done with illusions. The Bolseviks may 
 not be German agents, and we have more than once pro- 
 tested against the crude Jingoism which fancies that it has 
 explained everything by labelling them as such. But they 
 have from the first played the game of our enemies ; they 
 have risen to power over the prostrate bodies of our friends ; 
 and they have not hesitated to employ even assassination 
 
HAVE THE ALLIES A RUSSIAN POLICY ? 239 
 
 where it could serve their ends. As we wrote when their 
 so-called " government " first usurped authority — '' they 
 represent neither Russia nor the Revolution. The cause of 
 the Russian people is our cause ; the ideals of liberty and 
 self-government for which the New Russia stands [we were 
 writing of the first, not of the second revolution] are our 
 ideals ; and it is for this reason that we repudiate those 
 whose diseased fancy bids them proclaim nightmares as 
 realities." ^ To-day only those who are utterly divorced 
 from realities can seriously suggest that we should pin our 
 faith to men with whom we have not a single aim or principle 
 in common, and in so doing should throw over all those in 
 Russia whose ideals are identical with our own, and who 
 have staked their whole existence in the common cause. 
 It was not unreasonable to suspend judgment of the Bol- 
 seviks in the earlier stages of the Brest negotiations, when 
 for a time it seemed as though they were in earnest in their 
 advocacy of self-determination. 1 Co-operation with them 
 to-day, when their whole system is bankrupt and the 
 disillusionment of their dupes is proceeding apace, would 
 be the supreme height of folly : it might postpone, but it 
 could not avert, their final fiasco. Its only result would be 
 to transfer to our shoulders a share of their discredit, and 
 to reduce to a dangerous state of despair those sober 
 elements which look to us for salvation. 
 
 But if we repudiate the fatal policy of coquetting with 
 the discredited Bolsevik desperadoes, we are no less firmly 
 opposed to that other policy of desperation advocated by 
 our reactionaries of the Morning Post school, who pathetic- 
 ally invoke the shade of Ivan the Terrible and dream of the 
 restoration of the Tsarist regime. The misdeeds of Rasputin 
 and the " Hessian woman " have undermined Tsarism as 
 ^ The New Europe, No. 57, November 15, 1917. 
 
240 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 effectually as the Affair of the Necklace compromised the 
 House of Capet ; and though we have no intention of 
 prophesying the form of government which Russia may 
 see fit to adopt, we share the unfeigned delight of 
 our cousins across the Atlantic at the disappearance of 
 the most naked and unashamed of the three European 
 autocracies. 
 
 Between Nicholas Alexandrovitch and Vladimir Ilyitch 
 (Lenin) there is little or nothing to choose. Our Allies 
 must not be sought in a narrow cHque, whether it be 
 dynastic or proletarian. In Russia, as elsewhere, we are 
 only on safe ground when we accept the will of the majority 
 and those representative principles on which rest the 
 liberties of the modern world. These principles are in- 
 compatible with Bolsevism, which condemned itself to 
 sterihty and reaction when it destroyed the Constituent 
 Assembly and cynically disfranchised its own pohtical 
 opponents. It is not sufficiently known in this country — 
 and the Bolsevik telegraphic agencies made no effort to 
 extend our knowledge — that the last act of the Constituent 
 Assembly, the most democratic and representative body 
 which Russia, and perhaps Europe, has ever seen, was to 
 convey to the representatives of the AUied Powers an 
 expression of shame and regret at the act of the Bolseviks 
 in repudiating the London Convention. 
 
 It is with the Constituent Assembly — which is in no sense 
 a party machine, but ranges in ideas from the Octobrist 
 through the Cadets and Menseviks to the Social Revolution- 
 aries — that the best hopes for Russia's future lie ; and the 
 Alhes would be well advised if even at this late hour they 
 were to declare their confidence in the Constituent Assembly 
 and their readiness to recognise any government to which 
 it gives its sanction. Only thus can the burning question 
 
HAVE THE ALLIES A RUSSIAN POLICY ? 241 
 
 of intervention be solved. Only by sucb a declaration, 
 made simultaneously on behalf of all the Allies, great and 
 small, can Russian public opinion be convinced that " inter- 
 vention '' is genuine assistance no less to Russia herself 
 than to the Allied cause as a whole. 
 
 Uth May, 1918. ' 
 
 R 
 
OUR RUSSIAN POLICY! 
 
 War has ended in victory, and now tliat the Allies are faced 
 with the still thornier problem of " winning the peace," 
 their road is beset by serious obstacles of their own creation. 
 In the South-East a peaceful settlement is endangered by 
 secret treaties concluded in defiance of the principles pro- 
 claimed as the Allied goal. In the East the confusion and 
 disintegration due to profound social and political causes 
 has been still further accentuated by the irresolution and 
 aimlessness of the Western Cabinets. Both individually 
 and collectively, the Associated Powers seem unable to 
 evolve a Kussian policy ; yet to-day the fate of Russia is 
 the most fundamental of all the problems with which 
 Europe is confronted, and contains in it the seeds of future 
 peace or unrest for the world at large. Those who talk of 
 a peace settlement without taking Russia into account are 
 merely scraping the surface. The desinteressement which 
 they profess is that of the ostrich, and can only end in 
 disaster. It is futile to denounce Bolsevism as the canker 
 which is eating into the heart of the world, while declaring 
 that it is no business of ours to attempt the cure. It is still 
 more futile, besides being essentially disingenuous, to seek 
 to justify a policy of laisser-aller by the plea that we lack 
 the information upon which to form a decision. It is most 
 
 ^ From The New Europe, vol. x. No. 118, January 16, 1919. 
 
 242 
 
QUE RUSSIAN POLICY 243 
 
 futile of all to deny our right of " interference " in Russian 
 internal affairs, and in tlie same breath, to insist upon the 
 creation of a super- national authority. 
 
 The days of '* non-intervention " as an abstract principle 
 are over ; and if the Society of Nations is to be realised at 
 all, we must begin by at least limiting the veto which each 
 nation has hitherto imposed upon the discussion of its own 
 affairs by neighbouring states. If war is to be avoided in 
 the future, it is necessary to introduce into the relations of 
 states certain fundamental rules which regulate the relations 
 of individuals. The private citizen, though free to conduct 
 his own affairs and to dispose of his own property, at once 
 encounters the law if he infringes public order or threatens 
 the safety of his neighbours ; but this, so far from being 
 a hmitation of his personal Hberty, is the very condition 
 which prevents that liberty from degenerating into licence 
 or anarchy. If international relations are ever to be 
 placed upon a permanent and peaceful footing, states 
 must submit themselves to similar restrictions. The form 
 of government and methods of internal administration 
 cannot ever be imposed from the outside without fatal 
 mischief resulting. But a government whose whole poH- 
 tical theory consists of a negation of the foundations upon 
 which its neighbours rest, and which proclaims as its 
 avowed object the overthrow of the existing political and 
 social order in every country, is as surely a menace to the 
 world at large as the armed robber in a private society ; 
 and there is no possible escape from the dilemma that the 
 rest of the world must coalesce to overthrow such a govern- 
 ment, or admit the impossibility of creating a League of 
 Nations. President Wilson described the Russian problem 
 as " the acid test " of our democracies, and to-day this is 
 true in the further sense that upon the manner in which 
 
244 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the problem of intervention is interpreted and solved will 
 depend the success or failure of a new international order. 
 Those who oppose " intervention " in any form are con- 
 sciously or unconsciously playing the game of those who 
 desire that the League of Nations should be stillborn. 
 
 " Hands off Russia " is a convenient catchword, but it 
 is nothing more. In plain language it means that all the 
 nations of the West are to keep their hands off the Bolse- 
 viks until the latter have time to organise themselves as an 
 aggressive force and to lay their hands upon the rest of 
 Europe. Six months ago the Allies could have crushed 
 the Bolseviks with one-third of the effort which would be 
 required to-day ; in three months' time the effort neces- 
 sary wiU have increased tenfold, and if it be postponed for a 
 year, they may be confronted by a movement which will 
 submerge all Europe, with the possible exception of France 
 and Britain. Those who say that the Bolseviks have no 
 idea behind them are fools. They have an idea no less 
 definite than that which set in motion the armies of the 
 first French Eepublic, and by the force of circumstances, 
 they are, in their turn, being driven to propagate it abroad 
 or perish from moral inanition and sheer material famine. 
 Unhappily this idea is the negation of all those political 
 principles which the modern world has acquired through 
 the crucible of three great revolutions, in England, in 
 America, and in France. For liberty it has substituted 
 terror — a terror such as the men of 1793 never dreamed of — 
 for equality and fraternity, class-hatred, the dictatorship 
 of the proletariat, and the proscription of the intellectual 
 class. And our sentimental democrats would have us 
 observe a policy of '' hands off " to men who mock at 
 democracy alike in theory and in practice, and who abso- 
 lutely decline to adopt " hands off " towards any of their 
 
OUK RUSSIAN POLICY 245 
 
 neighbours. Wlien the Bolseviks respect the territory of 
 our Polish and Esthonian allies and of our friends in 
 Livonia and Lithuania, it will be time enough to adopt a 
 rigid view with regard to the sanctity of the Bolsevik 
 frontiers. Meanwhile if we decline to take up their chal- 
 lenge while they are still only threatening Vilna and Riga, 
 we may be forced to do so when they are already supreme 
 in Warsaw, Berlin, and Budapest. 
 
 Intervention in one form or another is inevitable and 
 desirable alike in the interests of Russia and of humanity ; 
 all depends upon the interpretation given to the word. In 
 our opinion the action of the Allies must rest upon a precise 
 and pubhcly defined programme, having the sanction of 
 the Allied Peace Conference, and thus of the League of 
 Nations, which is already coming to birth. 
 
 In the first place it must be declared, beyond all possi- 
 bility of doubt and misunderstanding, that the restoration 
 of Tsarism is impossible and intolerable to the free demo- 
 cracies of the West, and would be met with their universal 
 disapproval and opposition. Conversely, we must comnut 
 ourselves no less publicly to the principle of a Federal 
 Russian Republic, as alone capable of reconciUng and cen- 
 trahsing tendencies of economic life with the special national 
 needs and outlook of the border nations. 
 
 It must be further declared that the Allies stand irrevo- 
 cably for the principle of representative government, and 
 therefore favour the convocation, at the earliest possible 
 date, of a new Russian Constituent Assembly (the Assembly 
 of December 1917 being past revival), based upon uni- 
 versal suffrage and free elections. On this point there must, 
 and can, be no hesitation. We must nail our colours to 
 the mast. There can be no compromise with the ideas of 
 Lenin or of Karl Liebknecht. The autocracy of a single 
 
246 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 caste or class is always odious and corrupting, whether it 
 comes from the Left or from the Right, from below or from 
 above. Social reconstruction must rest upon equal oppor- 
 tunity for all ; levelling upwards rather than downwards, 
 but, above all, levelling : government of the people for the 
 people by the people : co-operation of every class in the 
 common tasks of social, political and rehgious life. To 
 all this the Bolseviks retort with the contention that the 
 whole structure of modern society is rotten to the core 
 and must be razed to the ground before new building can 
 be attempted. Their attack is a frontal one, the contrast 
 of ideals is absolute, and either their world or ours must 
 perish. 
 
 Thirdly, we must take care that all those Russians with 
 whom we collaborate are irrevocably committed to the full 
 agrarian programme. The land must remain absolutely in 
 the hands of the peasants throughout the territory of the 
 Federal RepubHc, and while the final details of so vast 
 and comphcated a transference of property and of power 
 must doubtless be left to a future legislative body, the bare 
 idea of restoration to the old proprietors must from the 
 first be made impossible. 
 
 Unless all uncertainty upon this point can be dispelled 
 from the minds of the peasants, the success of any expedition 
 would be endangered from the very outset. What made the 
 armies of the Convention and the Directorate invincible 
 was the firm resolve to preserve the newly acquired land 
 from the clutches of the emigrant nobles whom an Euro- 
 pean coalition would fain have reinstated ; and to-day the 
 one and only thing which would rouse the rural masses of 
 Russia would be a challenge to their possesision of the land. 
 But conversely they are uneasy as to their tenure under a 
 Bolsevik regime, and resentful of the more and more fre- 
 
OUR RUSSIAN POLICY 247 
 
 quent attempts to commandeer their stocks of grain. Thus 
 those who came to them offering not only a firm guarantee 
 of possession, but in addition those ordered conditions for 
 which they are already longing, would arouse at once all 
 that is most conservative and all that is most radical in 
 their nature. The central fact in Eastern and much of 
 Central Europe is a passionate land-hunger on the part of 
 those inarticulate millions which form the backbone of the 
 state ; and the success or failure of Allied policy in those 
 regions will depend upon the degree to which it reckons with 
 this fact. 
 
 Such, in our opinion, is the policy upon which alone we 
 can safely base any action in Russia. Certainly it is one 
 which no one could describe as " counter-revolutionary " 
 in the accepted sense of the word ; for it would be the 
 consecration of the Revolution of March 1917. We are 
 convinced that such a pohcy represents the true interests 
 of Russia herself, and would have the ardent support of all 
 the best leaders of Russian political thought, of all with 
 whom the future of the nation rests. If their hopes in the 
 Allies should be disappointed, then there is grave danger 
 that, whether the currents of political opinion in either 
 country set towards the Left or towards the Right, the fate 
 of Russia and of Germany will be linked together during 
 the decisive period of reconstruction that lies before us. 
 
 In these days of reaction against a Slavophil policy, it 
 is more than ever necessary to emphasise the immense 
 services rendered to the Allied cause by Russian endurance 
 and ideaUsm during the darkest period of the war. Only 
 the blackest ingratitude can forget that but for Russia's 
 sacrifice — prolonged under a strain to which any Western 
 nation would have succumbed at least a year earlier — 
 Prussianism would to-day be triumphant in the world. 
 
248 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 But quite apart from any debt of honour or sympathy, the 
 problem of Russia is intimately bound up with another 
 question to which no man can possibly remain indifferent 
 — namely, that of disarmament. Early in the election Mr. 
 Lloyd George very rightly committed himself and his 
 government to the principle of general reduction of arma- 
 ments and the abolition of conscript armies. Those 
 malicious critics who accuse him of seeking to evade this 
 pledge, thanks to the opposition of certain of our Allies, 
 appear to not realise the fundamental fact that real dis- 
 armament both in Britain and America must depend upon 
 disarmament on the Continent. As, however, the Western 
 nations cannot disarm unless their neighbours farther East 
 do so simultaneously, the fulfilment of the whole policy 
 upon which social reconstruction and escape from bank- 
 ruptcy in every country depend is in the long run contingent 
 upon the establishment of ordered conditions in Russia. 
 
 " Intervention," like many another catchword, is already 
 being used to cover many different meanings ; and it is 
 obvious that to no one in his senses can it mean " the conquest 
 of Russia." Intervention means definite commitments in 
 favour of our friends and against our enemies, and active 
 support of the former by means of supplies, ammunition 
 and finance. After four years of war we start from the 
 assumption that only volunteer armies can be employed. 
 This should not, however, present grave difficulties, since 
 the number of men required would not be enormous, and 
 since their main task would be to stiffen Russian armies 
 which are already in the field, but are insufficiently equipped 
 and organised. The Bolseviks are, of all others, those least 
 entitled to reproach us for employing a " mercenary " 
 army against them, since their whole system rests upon a 
 Pretorian army which, like the Janissaries of old, accepts 
 
OUR RUSSIAN POLICY 249 
 
 a rigid discipline in return for high pay, good food, and 
 immunity for pillage and excess. The process which has 
 placed whole peoples under arms now has to be reversed ; 
 but before we can hope to replace conscription by the 
 Jaures conception of citizen armies, we must accept a 
 transition period of small standing armies. The sooner 
 order is restored in Eastern and Central Europe, the smaller 
 will such standing armies require to be. Thus those who 
 most desire speedy demobilisation of the conscripts should 
 be most eager for the volunteer expedition to Russia. 
 
 The chief British opponents of Russian intervention are 
 those whose war prophecies have so often been falsified by 
 events. They are, for the most part, the same who pled 
 so stubbornly for the preservation of Austria-Hungary. 
 And just as they failed to reahse that the disappearance of 
 Austria-Hungary was a preUminary condition of victory 
 for the Allies, so to-day they are bhnd to the glaring fact 
 that until some external force intervenes to restore order 
 in Russia, there can be no real peace in Europe, no general 
 disarmament in Europe or America, no Society of Nations, 
 no social reconstruction save through the horrors of 
 dissolution and anarchy. 
 
 13th January, 1919. 
 
THE FUTURE OP BOHEMIA ^ 
 
 Ignorance of Bohemia has been a tradition in this country 
 ever since the days when Shakespeare wrecked a certain 
 famous ship upon its imaginary coasts. Yet in those days 
 Bohemia still possessed an independent existence as one of 
 the chief kingdoms of Christendom. By a still stranger 
 confusion the word " Bohemian " has come to be associated 
 with the Latin Quarter, and has thus acquired a peculiar, 
 and a peculiarly misleading, flavour. It is right that in 
 this year the memory of Bohemia should be revived, not 
 merely because we hope that Bohemia may rise phoenix- 
 like from the great European conflagration, but because the 
 6th of July serves to remind us of Bohemia's greatest citizen, 
 and of Bohemia's greatest achievement in the history of 
 Europe. On that day flve hundred years ago, John Hus 
 was burnt at the stake at the Council of Constance. 
 
 Till very recently it was the fashion to deride things 
 Slavonic, as uncivilised and barbarous. The best answer 
 to this — quite apart from the triumphs of Russian musical, 
 literary, and dramatic genius which are no longer unfamiliar 
 to us to-day — is to point to the existence, in the very heart 
 of Europe, surrounded by hostile influences,' of a highly 
 cultured, democratic, progressive, Slavonic nation, the 
 
 ^ Lecture delivered at King's College, London, in honour of the 
 Quincentenary of John Hus, 1915. 
 
 250 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 251 
 
 Czechs of Bohemia. It is right to remember on the anni- 
 versary of Hus, that the Slavs, as well as the Latin and 
 Germanic races, contributed to the Reformation movement 
 which was to transform Europe and the world, both from 
 a rehgious and from a national point of view. Nowhere 
 are the three dominant factors of modern life — reUgion, 
 nationality, and economics — more strongly marked than in 
 the history of Bohemia. At such a time as the present 
 there can be no desire to give an aggressive turn to such an 
 anniversary, or to exploit it in a way that might offend 
 those of different rehgious views ; but we cannot, surely, 
 be blamed for using the occasion for the expression of our 
 admiration and reverence. 
 
 For three centuries Bohemia has ceased to figure on the 
 map of Europe as an independent State ; but no atlas 
 which attempts to reproduce the physical features of the 
 various countries can hope to efface the marks of her 
 geographical unity. Her lozenge-shaped plateau with its 
 fringe of mountains stands out boldly from the surrounding 
 countries. The Riesengebirge, the Erzgebirge, the Bohe- 
 mian forest hem her in almost upon three sides, and even on 
 the south and south-east there are clear Hnes of demarcation. 
 The strategic importance of this natural fortress has long 
 been a commonplace with military students ; indeed, the 
 phrase, " The master of Bohemia will be the master of 
 Europe," is far more plausible than the parallel dictum of 
 Napoleon I. about Constantinople. The famous Panslavist, 
 General Fadejev, knew what he was about when, forty-five 
 years ago, he wrote, " Without Bohemia the Slav cause is 
 for ever lost ; it is the head, the advance-guard of all Slavs." 
 
 Geographical unity ^Bohemia has, but racial unity has 
 been denied to her. For centuries Bohemia has been 
 inhabited by two rival races, the Czechs and the Germans, 
 
252 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and has formed one of the chief battle-grounds between the 
 Slav and the Teutonic idea. Into the vexed question, 
 which of the two races has priority or formed the true 
 majority in earher centuries, we need not enter. Much 
 has been made of such arguments on both sides ; but in 
 reahty it is quite as immaterial as the similar question 
 whether the Roumanians were in possession of Transylvania 
 before the Magyars, or the Magyars before the Roumanians. 
 In the one case, as in the other, both races have been there 
 so long that no one is entitled to regard either of them as 
 inferiors or interlopers. 
 
 For our present purpose it is sufficient to note that 
 as early as the seventh century there already was a Czech 
 State, periodically at war with the neighbouring German 
 tribes and varjdng greatly in extent and territory with 
 every generation. Under the national Slav dynasty of the 
 Pf emysls it was gradually consolidated ; two princes of 
 that house acquired the kingly title, but it was not till the 
 very end of the twelfth century that Bohemia finally became 
 a kingdom. In the thirteenth century Ottokar of Bohemia 
 (1253-78) was'also Duke of Austria and Styria, until he was 
 overthrown and stripped of his German provinces by Rudolf 
 of Habsburg, the founder of the Austrian Imperial family. 
 
 But the heroic era of Bohemia Lies in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, first under a French dynasty, the Kings 
 of the House of Luxemburg, and later under a national 
 King, elected from the ranks of her own nobility. The 
 outstanding feature of this period, as of earlier and later 
 periods of Bohemian history, is the perennial racial struggle 
 between Czech and German. 
 
 In passing, it may be worth while pointing out that the 
 Prince of Wales's plumes, so famihar to us as an emblem, 
 were won upon the battlefield of Crecy from the blind King 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 253 
 
 Jolin of Bohemia, after he had fallen in a mad but gallant 
 charge. John's son and successor Charles, who was also 
 Emperor, won for Bohemia a position of European import- 
 ance. Under his wise and prosperous rule the Bohemian 
 capital first received the name of " Golden Prague " — a 
 name still accepted with enthusiasm by every visitor to 
 that fascinating blend of mediaeval, rococo, and modern 
 art. In 1348 Charles founded the University of Prague, 
 which with striking rapidity acquired an academic rank 
 not unworthy of its elder sisters Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. 
 It was the first University to be founded in the whole 
 German and Slavonic world, and it was here, fittingly 
 enough, that the first great conflict of two widely differing 
 cultures was to be- fought out. 
 
 ' That the Czechs triumphed over their German rivals, 
 was largely due to the genius of one man, John Hus, who as 
 priest of the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague and Rector of 
 the University, had won to a rare degree the confidence and 
 admiration of his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Any attempt to tell the story of John Hus would lead 
 us far beyond the limits of the present essay ; it will be 
 sufficient to indicate the main features of his remarkable 
 career. 
 
 1. The Bohemian movement for reform had, in its origin, 
 not the slightest tinge of anti-Papal feefing. It began with 
 protests against the gross immorality and worldliness of 
 the Bohemian clergy, especially in Prague itself. Hus was 
 by no means as great a heretic as is sometimes imagined. 
 He of course suffered, like every public man in his century, 
 from the gross scurrilities and deUberate misrepresentations 
 of his enemies, which were not so easily refuted before the 
 days of printing as in later days. But it is certain that he 
 accepted all the main dogmas of the Roman Church. For 
 
254 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 example, the view so fiercely held by the theologians of that 
 day and so often challenged by subsequent reformers, that 
 the unworthiness of the priest does not ajEfect the validity 
 of the sacrament, was never challenged by Hus, and indeed 
 was more than once publicly aflB.rmed by him. Englishmen 
 may well be proud of Wycliffe's influence upon Hus ; but 
 that influence was almost certainly less dogmatic than 
 practical. In a famous message to his own congregation 
 of the Bethlehem Chapel he referred to '' Blessed England," 
 but it would seem that his admiration for Wycliffe sprang 
 from his zeal for the purification of the Church from existing 
 abuses, not from any desire to overthrow the existing 
 order of the ecclesiastical world. It can be, and has been, 
 quite seriously argued that Hus never questioned any 
 dogma which had obtained the sanction of the Church up 
 to his day ; Papal Infallibility, which he did challenge, was 
 of course widely upheld even in the fifteenth century, but 
 was not erected into a dogma till 1870. But on the other 
 hand no one can pretend to deny that his whole influence, 
 the whole trend of his life and teachings was contrary to 
 the Papal claims, and in favour of what afterwards came 
 to be known as the Eeformation. Luther rightly regarded 
 Hus as his forerunner, and on a famous occasion exclaimed, 
 " We have all been Hussites, without knowing it." 
 
 Just as at a later date Knox could say of the first martyr 
 of the Scottish Reformation, " The reek of Maister Patrick 
 Hamilton has infected all it blew upon," so it is worth 
 noting that the teaching of Hus, which at the time found 
 its fiercest opponents among the Germans, none the less a 
 century later inspired the great rehgious movement which 
 revivified Germany. Time brings its revenges, and to-day 
 the English, who burnt the Maid of France, and the Scots, 
 who fought for her, unite in honouring her statue at Rouen. 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 255 
 
 May we not, also at the anniversary of Waterloo, express 
 the hope that ere long, as the result of a just and lasting 
 settlement, the secular hates of German and Czech may be 
 merged in a new enthusiasm for the cause of common 
 civilisation ? 
 
 I have written as an ardent and convinced admirer of 
 Hus the reformer as well as Hus the patriot. But I wish 
 to make it clear that in admiring that side of him, I have 
 not even the remotest wish to offend the CathoHc senti- 
 ments of the majority of his countrymen of to-day. They 
 have shown only too clearly that those who differ from him 
 on religious matters can still revere him as a great national 
 hero. 
 
 At a time when in England increased interest is being 
 
 shown in the Russian Orthodox Church, it may be well to 
 
 refer to the curious fact that in Russia Hus is very widely 
 
 regarded as " Pravoslav '* or Orthodox in his views and 
 
 aims. The accuracy of this view has been challenged, and 
 
 indeed refuted, by all the leading Czech historians from 
 
 Palacky and Tomek to Count Liitzow. There is no trace 
 
 whatever of Russian or Eastern influence upon Hus. But 
 
 the origin of the idea is distinctly interesting. Christianity 
 
 first came to Bohemia and Moravia from the East, through 
 
 the great Slavonic apostles, Saints Cyril and Methodius, 
 
 who began their career as missionaries of Byzantium, and 
 
 then drifted into the Roman sphere. Methodius was 
 
 Archbishop of Nitra, the old Slovak town in North-west 
 
 Hungary, in the ninth century. It is also significant that 
 
 the ceUbacy of the clergy and the withdrawal of the chahce 
 
 from the laity became established at a considerably later 
 
 date in Bohemia than in the rest of Western Christendom. 
 
 2. The movement inspired and inaugurated by John 
 
 Hus was quite as much national as it was religious in 
 
256 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 character. The Czechs were for reform, the Germans for 
 reaction and the Papal supremacy. This is the secret of 
 Hus's great popularity at the present day, when his portrait 
 may be seen on the walls of many a devout CathoHc priest, 
 and Protestants form but an insignificant minority among 
 his admirers. And indeed, his services to the national 
 cause of Bohemia can hardly be exaggerated. What 
 Luther did for the German language, Hus did a whole 
 century earUer for the Czech language. Hus's writings are 
 epoch-making not only in the history of Czech literature, 
 but in Slavonic history as a whole. In addition to revising 
 and correcting the existing Czech translations of the Bible, 
 he wrote at least as much in Czech as in Latin, then still 
 the usual medium for works of a theological nature. In yet 
 another respect he was a Hnguistic pioneer ; he was the 
 first to attempt a reform of Slavonic orthography according 
 to a logical system. 
 
 A further interesting parallel to Luther is the stress laid 
 by Hus upon church music, and especially upon congrega- 
 tional singing. This was natural enough among a nation of 
 musicians, the Czechs and the Welsh being perhaps the two 
 most musical nations in Europe. The Hussite songs, the 
 hymns of the reformer's own hfetime and the religious 
 battle-songs of his more warHke successors, occupy a unique 
 place of their own alike in musical and in poHtical history. 
 
 Hus, then, was equally great as reformer and as patriot, 
 as the inspirer of an intellectual movement and as the 
 political leader of a nation. For ^ve hundred years he has 
 stood as the foremost champion of Czech nationality and 
 the Czech language, and he also deserves some credit as 
 one of the earliest advocates of Slav unity. The letter of 
 congratulation which he addressed to King Vladislaw of 
 Poland after his great victory over the Teutonic Knights 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 257 
 
 at Tannenberg (UIO) is not without interest at a moment 
 when the Germans claim to have wiped out that national 
 disaster, but when we still confidently hope that a final 
 Russian victory will seal the reconciliation of Pole and 
 Russian as brothers in the cause of Slavonic unity. The 
 heroic achievement of John Hus has been well characterised 
 in the words of his countryman and biographer, Count 
 Liitzow : "If neglecting for a moment the minutiae of 
 mediaeval theological controversy, we consider as a martyr 
 that man who willingly sacrifices his individual life for 
 what he firmly believes to be the good of humanity at large, 
 who 'takes the world's life on him and his own lays down,' 
 then assuredly there is no truer martyr in the world's annals 
 than John Hus." 
 
 The Hussite Wars, which followed the tragedy of Con- 
 stance, are one of the most remarkable episodes in history 
 and especially deserving of attention ^at the present time. 
 The Bohemian nation, alone and unaided, held all Europe 
 at bay for close upon twenty years, and routed army after 
 army which the Germans sent against them. There have 
 been moments in history — it is necessary to emphasise 
 this to-day — when the German spirit has led the van of 
 Europe. But on the occasion of the Hussite Wars, as in the 
 present European tragedy, Germany unquestionably stood 
 for reaction and for the imposition of an alien " Kultur." 
 To-day the legions of Bohemia are forced unwillingly, by a 
 foul and unnatural system, to fight the battles of their 
 deadliest enemies. But surely we are entitled to believe 
 that the spirit of John 2izka, the heroic blind general of the 
 Czechs, is fighting on our side to-day, and to hope that the 
 nation which through his victories did so much to secure the 
 intellectual freedom and progress of Europe, will ere long be 
 in a position tg pursue once more its independent existence. 
 
 S 
 
258 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 The Hussite Wars were fought for an idea, for an abstrac- 
 tion — on the religious side, for the Coumiunion in both 
 kinds ; on the civil side, for the rights of the Czech language 
 against the encroachments of the German. These two 
 ideal aims combined made Bohemia irresistible. What 
 people in Europe can boast a prouder title than that which 
 the Czechs won during the long Hussite struggle — "the 
 People of the Chalice " ? Bohemia's greatest historian, 
 Francis Palacky, may surely be pardoned for putting 
 forward the contention that the Hussite War is " the first 
 war in the world's history that was fought not for material 
 interests, but for intellectual ones, for ideas." Certain it 
 is that when victory at last crowned the Hussite arms, they 
 made a moderate use of it, and indulged in no revenge or 
 proscription of the beaten side. The Taborites, it is true, 
 showed the same excess of religious zeal as the sectaries of 
 Cromwell's day. But the Utraquists, as the victorious 
 champions of the Communion in both kinds came to be 
 called, set a worthy example of tolerance in an intolerant 
 age. 
 
 How different was the behaviour of the triumphant 
 Romanist party two centuries later, after the great tragedy 
 of Bohemian history, the battle of the White Mountain 
 (1620) ! The Thirty Years' War, it will be remembered, 
 opened in Bohemia, with the sensational incident known 
 as the " Defenestration of Prague," the brief interlude of 
 the Elector Palatine's kingship and his defeat and expulsion 
 by the Imperialists in that memorable battle outside the 
 walls of Prague. His wife, the Winter Queen, daughter of 
 our own James I., still holds her own place in English 
 literature as " the eclipse and glory of her kind." 
 
 The victor of the White Mountain, the fanatical 
 Ferdinand II. of Habsburg, set himself to exterminate 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 259 
 
 heresy from his domicions. He expelled the preachers and 
 introduced the Jesuits. Utraquism was sternly suppressed. 
 The ancient Bohemian nobility was to a large extent 
 destroyed and replaced by foreign upstarts. Above all, 
 systematic efforts were made to destroy Czech national 
 literature, owing to its Hussite tinge. Indeed, one Jesuit 
 -boasted that he alone had burnt no fewer than sixty 
 thousand Czech volumes. Ferdinand acted only too 
 literally upon the advice of his Capuchin confessor, to show 
 no mercy to the Bohemians, but to comply with the words 
 of the Psalmist : " Thou shalt break them with a rod of 
 iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." 
 
 Thanks to the tyranny of the Habsburgs and their 
 Jesuit advisers, the condition of Bohemia was one of utter 
 stagnation from the Thirty Years' War down to the second 
 quarter of the nineteenth century. All national life was in 
 abeyance. Bohemia was completely Germanised, bound 
 hand and foot by the red tape of an indolent and brainless 
 bureaucracy, by the intellectual and moral censorship of 
 the Church, the Jesuits, and the police system. 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century a tiny group of Slav 
 patriots was in the habit of meeting at intervals in the 
 private room of an inn in Prague ; and one of them, Rieger, 
 remarked to his friends, " If the ceiling of this room were 
 to fall and crush us, there would be an end of the national 
 movement in Bohemia." And this was scarcely an ex- 
 aggeration ; for in Bohemia, as in many other countries, 
 a handful of idealists and theorists — for the most part 
 historical students and professors of literature — sowed the 
 seed which a generation later was to awaken a whole race. 
 The Society of the Bohemian Museum, founded in 1818, 
 aimed at a revival of the national language ; and it is 
 worth noting that at first there was no feud with the 
 
260 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Germans. Goethe was himself an honoured member, and 
 the poets Lenau and Meissner wrote in honour of the 
 Hussites. It was not until the Czech revival assumed an 
 openly Slavophil form, that the enthusiasm of the Germans 
 cooled down. 
 
 It is important to note that the Panslav movement, in 
 its most ideal form, as an expression of the kinship and 
 brotherhood of all the different Slavonic races, origin- 
 ated quite as much in Bohemia as in Russia. Its earhest 
 mouthpiece, Jan Kollar, who was clergyman of the Slovak 
 Lutheran Church in Budapest, wrote two epoch-making 
 books — a long epic poem entitled " The Daughter . of 
 Slava," in which he sang the glories of Slavdom and created, 
 in imitation of Dante, a mythical Slav Olympus and Hades, 
 where the friends and enemies of the Slav race are pictur- 
 esquely grouped, and a short essay advocating " The 
 Literary Reciprocity of all Slavs." Both books awakened 
 a resounding echo throughout the Slav world. About the 
 same time another Slovak, Safafik, a professor in Prague, 
 wrote an equally epoch-making book on " Slav Antiquities," 
 which has remained the foundation stone of all study of 
 Slav origins, whether in the matter of language, geography, 
 or race. 
 
 The hterary movement in Prague steadily gathered 
 fqrce, and acquired a political tinge which all the efforts of 
 the police failed to efface^ The Czech press came to life, 
 and — as all references to internal Boheroian pohtics 
 were as carefully muzzled by the censorship of the 'forties 
 as they are to-day in the existing reign of terror — one of 
 their most brilliant journaHsts, Havlicek, contrived to 
 criticise the Government in the skilfully veiled form of 
 reports on the condition of Ireland ! 
 
 In the great year of revolution, 1848, the growdng Slav 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 261 
 
 movement found expression in a Slav Congress held in 
 Prague, with the great Czech historian Francis Palacky as 
 President and with delegates from Poland, Serbia, Croatia, 
 the Slovak districts, and even Russia. Palacky earned 
 the ill-will of the German extremists by his refusal to take 
 part in the German Federal Parliament at Frankfurt. 
 But he very rightly held that Austria's sole hope for the 
 future lay in the introduction of a federal system, and this 
 he advocated till the very end of his life. A famous saying 
 of his has found its way through Europe and has formed 
 the text of many edifying sermons upon Austria (I too must 
 plead guilty to having used it more than once myself) : 
 " If there were no Austria, it would be necessary to create 
 one." The root meaning of such a phrase has been all too 
 often overlooked ; Palacky regarded the continued exist- 
 ence of Austria as the sole means of avoiding a European 
 cataclysm. But now that such a cataclysm has actually 
 come upon us, surely we shall do well to remember another 
 winged word appHed by Palacky to his native Bohemia : 
 *' Before Austria was, we were, and when Austria no longer 
 is, we stiU shall be." Surely a prophetic phrase. 
 
 Since 1848 the national movement in Bohemia has 
 steadily and irresistibly progressed. Its weakest side has 
 always been the poHtical. The Czechs have produced a 
 very large number of able leaders of the second and third 
 ranks, but not a single one of supreme eminence, and what 
 is most important of all, no one at all comparable to the 
 really great men whom their Magyar contemporaries pro- 
 duced, Deak, Kossuth, and Andrassy. The inevitable 
 result has been that the Czechs have wasted many golden 
 opportunities and have been forestalled by other races, 
 notably the Magyars and the Poles. They have allowed 
 themselves to squander time and energy over barren 
 
262 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 linguistic brawls, to overdo the policy of the mere wrecker 
 and obstructionist, and so to destroy their prestige and 
 reputation for political foresight both at home and abroad. 
 Meanwhile their progress in other fields than politics has 
 been altogether admirable. They have developed a rich and 
 attractive literature, with at least two poets of the front 
 rank, Svatopluk Cech and VrhHcky, as well as numerous 
 novelists, dramatists, historians, and men of science. 
 Their system of education is highly efiicient, and worthy 
 of the tradition of their own Comenius (Komensky), one 
 of the greatest educationalists of modern times. To-day 
 there are two Universities in Prague, a German and a 
 Czech, the latter with more students than Oxford and 
 Cambridge combined, and some .professors of European 
 fame. In Bohemia and Moravia to-day there are practi- 
 cally no illiterates. 
 
 In drama the Czechs are also well to the fore. The 
 National Theatre at Prague is one of the best of its kind in 
 Europe ; indeed, to many chance visitors the existence of 
 this splendid Slavonic theatre must have been something 
 of a revelation. Still more is this true of music, for which 
 the Czechs are justly celebrated. They and their half- 
 brothers the Slovaks are extraordinarily rich in folk-songs 
 and melodies, many of which show obvious traces of the 
 ancient Slavonic church modes. Moreover, they have pro- 
 duced several composers of the very front rank, notably 
 Dvorak, who is famous throughout Europe, and Smetana, 
 who is less known but equally great and is indeed regarded 
 as the most characteristic of all Czech composers. Novak, 
 Fibich, and other younger composers have also won the 
 attention of the musical world, and it is almost superfluous 
 to mention that Kubelik, the famous violinist, is a native of 
 Bohemia. Prague is a famous centre of music and of art ; 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 263 
 
 and though it is impossible to point to any Czech artist of 
 altogether European reputation, all visitors to the modern 
 Gallery of Prague and to the annual exhibitions of the 
 various art societies, are aware that art is on a higher 
 level in Prague than in many cities more famous in the 
 artistic world. And at least a word of praise should be 
 reserved for the brilhant group of Moravian artists who 
 have rallied round the great Slovak peasant-artist Joza 
 Uprka and have made of their art pavihon at Hodonin a 
 shrine of popular art and an inspiration for the artistic 
 development of the future. " Uprka red " has to be seen 
 to be believed, and nowhere can it be seen to better ad- 
 vantage than in the prosperous Slovak villages of the 
 Moravian border. 
 
 ' Bohemia and Silesia form to-day the chief industrial 
 centre of Austria. Bohemian glass, sugar, and textiles have 
 won something more than local fame ; and so too the 
 famous beer of Pilsen, and that other less innocuous pro- 
 duct of the same town, the armaments of the great Skoda 
 works. It is the rapid growth of Bohemian mining in- 
 dustries and manufactures which has so seriously com- 
 plicated the racial struggle between Czech and German. 
 So long as the population remained more or less rooted to 
 the soil, there was at least the possibility of mapping out 
 the mixed districts and settling upon their special treat- 
 ment. But with a population kept in a state of continual 
 ebb and flow by industrial developments, minorities are 
 continually cropping up in unexpected places and then 
 again disappearing ; and it is unfortunately the case that 
 both Czech and German employers put very considerable 
 pressure on their workmen in a national sense. In short, 
 economics and nationality are inextricably interwoven in 
 Bohemia, just as in Hungary, Roumania, and the Balkans. 
 
264 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 The present political and constitutional regime in 
 Austria-Hungary dates from the famous Ausgleich or 
 Compromise of 1867, by which the fate of ten races was 
 surrendered into the hands of two, the Germans and the 
 Magyars, one in each half of the " Dual Monarchy." 
 Against this system the Czechs of all ]jarties have always 
 vigorously protested, insisting on the claims of the historic 
 crown and kingdom of St. Wenceslas as entitled to at least 
 as much consideration as the Hungarian Crown of St. 
 Stephen. There was indeed a moment, during the Franco- 
 German War, when the present Emperor seemed inclined 
 to atone for his neglect of Czech interests and was on the 
 point of being crowned King of Bohemia. But the Magyars 
 immediately strained every effort to withhold from the 
 Slavs the rights which they had so persistently and success- 
 fully claimed for themselves ; and from that day to this 
 Francis Jose]3h has always evaded his plighted word to 
 Bohemia. 
 
 The protests of the Czechs have gained steadily in 
 strength and volume, as the current of their national life 
 broadened and deepened ; and a year ago the Czechs might 
 fairly have been described as a highly organised, highly 
 educated, keen, hard-working democracy, perhaps some- 
 times needlessly aggressive, perhajDS also short-sighted or 
 narrow in its political outlook, but none the less progressive 
 and modern in the very best sense of those words. 
 
 Their national attitude in home politics is reflected in 
 their attitude to Foreign Policy. The Czechs have always 
 been pronounced and outspoken opponents of Viennese 
 poHcy, and still more of the poisonous influence of Buda- 
 pest and of Magyar racial tyranny upon that policy. They 
 have always opposed Prussia, Berlin, and the Triple 
 Alliance by every means in their power. Public opinion 
 
THE FUTUEE OF BOHEMIA 265 
 
 in Bohemia has alwa.ys been consistently Francophil and 
 Anglophil, and above all Kussophil, emphasising the kin- 
 ship and blood ties of all the Slav races. In 1870 it sym- 
 pathised keenly with France, in 1878 with Eussia and her 
 noble struggle for the liberation of the Balkans, for opposing 
 which Britain is to-day papng so terribly in blood and 
 treasure. In 1908 it sympathised equally with Serbia 
 during the Bosnian crisis ; for it should be noted that 
 Prague has long been a very important centre of Southern 
 Slav culture, to which hundreds of Serb, Croat, and Bulgar 
 students flock every year. In 1912 there was no country 
 where the victories of the Balkan League aroused greater 
 dehght than in Prague ; and to-day it is scarcely an exag- 
 geration to assert that every man, woman, and child in 
 Bohemia sympathises with Eussia, and longs for the victory 
 of Eussia and her Western allies, as Bohemia's only hope 
 of salvation. As a famous Bohemian put it to me during 
 the war, even the Austrian police spies in Prague — so far 
 as they are of Czech nationality — would welcome the 
 Eussians ! And these are the people who, like their Serb, 
 Croat, and Slovene kinsmen in the south of Austria-Hun- 
 gary, are being compelled by a brutal and perverse system 
 to fight the battles of Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, to 
 pay the bill run up by the crimes and follies of German- 
 Magyar poHcy, to sacrifice thousands of their best sons, 
 fighting against their own kinsmen and friends, against all 
 their dearest traditions and aspirations. Hideous as has 
 been the fate of Belgium and of unconquerable Serbia, it 
 may safely be asserted that in this war the most hideous 
 fate of all has been reserved for the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, 
 and Serbo-Croats of the Dual Monarchy, who are fighting 
 under compidsion a war- that is to them a civil war, and that 
 from a national point of view, by far the greatest crime of 
 
266 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 tlie Central Powers has been their* ruthless exploitation 
 of thirty millions of their subject races in a quarrel which 
 is not theirs. 
 
 To-day the situation in Bohemia is altogether intoler- 
 able. Espionage and censorship are so complete that no 
 one makes any comment in public. The newsboards and 
 public notices are read in silence. Two men do not discuss 
 the war, unless they are certain that no stranger is within 
 earshot. The newspapers are of course completely muzzled, 
 and are even forced to print communications with the con- 
 tents of which they notoriously disagree. The editorial 
 staffs and the general pubHc aUke have become adepts at 
 the practice of writing, and reading, between the lines and 
 at the art of skilful omission and indirect allusion. 
 
 Political life has of course been completely suspended. 
 As neither the Austrian Parliament nor the provincial 
 Diets are allowed to meet, there is no parliamentary im- 
 munity. The party leaders are under the closest observa- 
 tion and have to be extremely careful. Early in the war 
 the authorities made great efforts to induce the Czech 
 parties to publish a manifesto in favour of war, but entirely 
 without success. All remained ominously silent. Bohemia 
 has two political leader-s of the highest standing — Dr. 
 Kramaf, the Young Czech leader, an ardent Eussophil, a 
 tireless opponent of the Triple Alliance, and one of the 
 spiritual authors of the so-called Neoslav movement, and 
 Professor Masaryk, the famous philosopher who has exer- 
 cised so remarkable an influence over the whole younger 
 generation of progressives in all the different Slavonic 
 countries, and who is also well known for his courageous 
 exposure of the methods of forgery, espionage, and provoca- 
 tion pursued by the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office in 
 the Agram High Treason trial and the even more notorious 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA 267 
 
 Friedjung trial. It was rumoured last August that both 
 these men had been executed ; but happily this was a mere 
 invention of the sensational Press. Till recently the only 
 prominent Czech politician to be arrested was Mr. Klofac, 
 the National Socialist deputy, who was implicated on the 
 strength of compromising letters written to him from 
 Switzerland — it is asserted, by Austrian agents provocateurs. 
 At the end of May Dr. Kramar and Dr. Scheiner, the Presi- 
 dent of the Bohemian Sokol (Gymnastic) Societies, were 
 also arrested. 
 
 Among the Czech regiments of the Austrian Army the 
 feeling is more or less openly Russophil. It is sufficient 
 to cite a remarkable incident which took place in Prague 
 itself at the beginning of last autumn. One of the Prague 
 regiments left for the GaUcian front, escorted on its way by 
 a large and sympathetic crowd, soldiers and civiHans singing 
 together their national songs, and above all the famous Pan- 
 slav hymn '* Hej Slovani," which contains a verse in honour 
 of the Russians and the French as friends in the struggle 
 against the Germans. Not content with this, they carried 
 before them a white banner bearing as an inscription an 
 extra verse written for the same hymn, to the effect that 
 " we are marching against the Russians, but nobody 
 knows why." So strong was the feeling of both the soldiers 
 and the crowd, that the officers of the regiment did not 
 venture to remove the banner. But the incident was 
 atoned for by an order which decimated the regiment when 
 it arrived at the front. Other instances of summary exe- 
 cutions in the Czech regiments have been known to occur 
 throughout the course of the war ; and it is a notorious 
 fact that the Czech soldiers surrender whenever an oppor- 
 tunity presents itself and are utterly averse to the idea of 
 fighting either Russia or Serbia. Equally characteristic 
 
268 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 is the fact that Bohemia is garrisoned almost exclusively 
 by Magyar and Roumanian troops, and by German second- 
 line troops from the Empire.^ 
 
 A few words must be devoted in conclusion to Bohemia's 
 aspirations for the future — aspirations which can only be 
 realised if the Allies are completely victorious. If Germany 
 wins, Bohemia becomes a mere annexe of Berlin. To-day 
 that ought to be clear enough to every one ; and there is 
 certainly no Czech who fails to reahse it. 
 
 Bohemia, then, hopes that our victory will mean the 
 break-up of the Dual Monarchy and the achievement of 
 Bohemian independence. Independent Bohemia, if it 
 can once be achieved, will not be by any means a mere 
 neghgible quantity. Comprising the greater part of the 
 three Austrian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia 
 — what is left of the territories of the mediaeval Crown of 
 St. Wenceslas — and also the Slovak districts of Northern 
 Hungary, Bohemia would possess a population of not less 
 than eleven or twelve milhons, and would thus occupy 
 the eighth place among the twenty-two States of Europe. 
 iCnd here it is necessary to point out that with the fate of 
 Bohemia is inseparably bound up the fate of their close 
 kinsmen the Slovaks, one of the most naturally gifted and 
 attractive of all the Slavonic races, whose political and 
 intellectual development has for generations past been 
 brutally stunted by the deliberate policy of the Magyar 
 oligarchy. Their language has been banished from all 
 secondary schools, colleges, and seminaries, and is being 
 steadily expelled even from the primary schools. It is 
 
 ^ Later surveys of events in Bohemia during the war will be 
 found in my " German, Slav and Magyar," and in numerous articles 
 in The New Europe, but especially in Mr. Vladimir Nosek's " Inde- 
 pendent Bohemia," published in December 1918. 
 
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA. 269 
 
 excluded from the administration and from every public 
 office ; even on the railways and in the post offices 
 Slovak inscriptions are not tolerated. The Slovak Press 
 has for years been subject to brutal persecution. Right 
 of assembly or association does not exist for the unhappy 
 Slovaks, or indeed for the other non-Magyar races of Hun- 
 gary. The small intellectual class is the victim of official 
 pressure and persecution in every imaginable form ; and 
 the most drastic steps are taken to prevent the Slovak 
 people from securing its due representation in Parliament. 
 Nowhere has the scandalous system of electoral corruption 
 and violence weighed more heavily than among the Slovaks. 
 As a distinguished Hungarian statesman said not many 
 years ago on the floor of the House, " In Hungary the 
 Magyar is the master." The other races are mere helots. 
 
 It is to perpetuate this infamous system that the 
 Magyar oligarchy, under the able leadership of Count Tisza, 
 is fighting this war ; and it can hardly be wondered at that 
 every Czech and Slovak should approve the rival programme 
 of Bohemian independence. The difficulties which lie in 
 the way of such a progranmie are many and obvious. The 
 new State would be seriously handicapped by the lack of a 
 seaboard, just as are Switzerland and Serbia to-day. This 
 insurmountable geographical fact would unquestionably 
 be the occasion of tariJS difficulties. But it must be re- 
 membered that even before the war Bohemia and Moravia, 
 which industrially possessed a special identity of their own, 
 suffered seriously from the economic disadvantages of their 
 situation. The attainment of their independence may 
 not enable them to overcome all these disadvantages, but 
 it is obvious that at the worst the Czechs can scarcely be 
 worse off when they have complete economic and financial 
 control of their own destinies and are thus able to consult 
 
270 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 their own peculiar interests, than in their present situa- 
 tion, when in all -matters economic and political alike the 
 main decision lies at Vienna and Budapest rather than 
 at Prague. 
 
 There can be no question that the new Bohemia would 
 for a considerable period need backing from without. Her 
 people would look above all to Eussia ; for, though nothing 
 is farther from their wishes than to become a province of 
 Russia, they are certain to remain Russophil after the war, 
 and to desire an intimate accord with Russia. If the war 
 produces the hoped-for reconciliation between Russians 
 and Poles, the Czechs are likely to prove a useful inter- 
 mediary, in view of their community of outlook as Western 
 Slavs. Above all, racial sympathies and a close community 
 of economic interests are likely to link Bohemia with the 
 new Jugoslav State which, it is to be hoped, will be formed 
 by the union of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia with Serbia 
 and Montenegro. Bohemia, like Jugoslavia, will aUke by 
 inclination and by necessity be the ally of the Triple 
 Entente and a powerful obstacle in the path of German 
 aggression. 
 
 The chief difficulty which will face the new State is the 
 problem of racial minorities : for in the event of Bohemian 
 independence it will inevitably include at least a million 
 and a half Germans. 
 
 There are, of course, certain points at which the existing 
 frontier can be pared down, leaving certain German dis- 
 tricts, such as the Egerland, the territory round Boden- 
 bach, or south of Budweis, to German- Austria, to Bavaria, 
 or to Saxony, and along the Silesian frontier similar con- 
 cessions could be made to the racial principle. But this is 
 unhappily impossible in North Bohemia, where the new 
 State, if it is to be self-sufficient and economically inde- 
 
THE FUTUKE OF BOHEMIA 271 
 
 pendent, must of necessity hold on to the mining and 
 industrial districts and where the existence of numerous 
 Czech minorities cannot be overlooked. But this difficulty 
 of racial minorities must not deter us. It is present almost 
 everywhere in central and south-eastern Europe, and there 
 is not a single problem which the war has raised that can 
 be solved in defiance of it. The best that we can do is to 
 educate pubhc opinion to oppose strenuously the suppres- 
 sion of national minorities, and to make a guarantee of 
 linguistic rights in the schools, churches, local bodies, and 
 cultural institutions a sine qua non in the settlement of 
 each individual problem. The Grermans of Bohemia and 
 Southern Hungary must be secured the same privileges as 
 the Magyars in the future Greater Roumania. Such an 
 arrangement is difficult, but most certainly attainable. 
 
 The Southern Slav Question has already forced itself 
 upon the attention of the world. The time will soon come 
 when the Bohemian Question will assume an equal import- 
 ance, and it is therefore essential to realise that the two 
 problems are intimately connected and likely to be more 
 so every day. The interests of the Czechs and of the 
 Southern Slavs coincide at every point. 
 
 Bohemia is called upon in the near future to play a 
 great part as intermediary between Russia and Britain. 
 As the most advanced and cultured of all the Slav nations, 
 she can present to Russia the ideas of the "West in suitable 
 Slavonic garb. As an ardent and sympathetic admirer of 
 Russia and Russian ideas, she may well become to us a 
 door upon the Slavonic world. There will be room in 
 the new Europe of which we dream for an independent 
 Bohemia, industrious, progressive, and peaceful, a Bohemia 
 which will have rescued its Slovak kinsmen from the in- 
 tolerable yoke of the Magyar oligarchy, but which will 
 
272 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 carefully avoid the Magyar exan>ple and give the fullest 
 freedom to its own German minorities. The day has not 
 yet arrived, but it will most assuredly come, if victory 
 crowns the arms of the Allies. In the words of Bismarck, 
 '' Bohemia is a fortress created by God Himself." But she 
 must become the fortress, not of Reaction, but of Liberty. 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS i 
 
 [" The future fate of Bohemia will be the touchstone of the 
 Allies' strength, earnestness, and statesmanship." — President 
 Masaryk in The New Europe, February 1917.] 
 
 The disappearance of the Habsburg Monarchy has involved 
 a drastic readjustment of values throughout Central Europe, 
 and even to-day the new political forms are only slowly 
 taking shape in the furnace of war and revolution. But 
 amid the general ruin two firm rocks stand out — the 
 Czecho-Slovak Republic and the united Jugoslav Kingdom. 
 By their policy during and since the Armistice the Allies 
 have done all in their power to injure and disintegrate the 
 latter, and attempts have not been lacking to foment in- 
 ternal discord and to encourage an artificial repubhcan 
 movement. Fortunately the national current has proved 
 infinitely stronger than any attempts at its sabotage, and 
 external dangers have only served to hasten the process 
 of consolidation. 
 
 Bohemia has been more fortunate in her relations with 
 the Entente Governments, which latterly at any rate have 
 vied with each "other in their professions of sympathy and 
 friendship. Unhappily mere words do not suffice to over- 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. x. Nos. 128, 129, 130, March 27, 
 April 3, April 10, 1919. 
 
 273 T 
 
274 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 come the difficulties of geography, and the AUies were so 
 strangely dilatory in sending food supplies that Prague 
 was on the very eve of famine before the necessary steps 
 were taken. 
 
 The future of the Czecho-Slovak Republic is one of the 
 most vital issues of European reconstruction, and its terri- 
 torial and other claims deserve the most careful considera- 
 tion. We propose to give a rapid survey of these claims, 
 which may be divided under eight main heads : (1) German - 
 Bohemia ; (2) Slovakia ; (3) Teschen ; (4) the Ruthenes of 
 Hungary ; (5) land connection with Jugoslavia ; (6) the 
 Sorbs of Lusatia ; (7) the Czech minority in Vienna ; 
 (8) international routes by rail and water. Of these, the 
 first two are, from the Czech point of view, hardly open to 
 discussion, save in points of detail ; the third is regarded 
 as vital economically ; the eighth as a fundamental condi- 
 tion of the success of any League of Nations ; while on the 
 remaining four the Czechs, though holding perfectly definite 
 views, are fully prepared to defer to the verdict of the 
 Conference. 
 
 Unfriendly critics point out that the Czech claims are 
 compounded of historical and ethnographic principles which 
 are mutually irreconcilable. But this, though undoubtedly 
 true, is not in itself a condemnation, for, quite apart from 
 the more obvious examples of Poland and Italy, there is 
 probably no single claim at present put forward by any 
 nation which is not open to the same criticism. Indeed, 
 this is merely another way of saying that no problem can 
 be satisfactorily solved unless due regard be taken for the 
 rival claims of nationality, geography, economics, and 
 rehgion. Historic rights can be grossly exaggerated ; but, 
 on the other hand, it would be puerile to ignore the tradi- 
 tions of a long and unbroken historic past, resting alike 
 
r'^\ 
 
 m 
 m 
 
 
 — 
 
276 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 upon keen national sentiment and upon basic facts of geo- 
 graphy and economics. 
 
 This is eminently the case with Bohemia. The lands of 
 the Crown of St. Wencelas (Bohemia, Moravia) have formed 
 a single unit since the Dark Ages •: at first under primitive 
 and uncertain conditions, since 1198 as a strong and self- 
 conscious national kingdom. One of their greatest kings, 
 the Emperor Charles IV., proclaimed the indivisibility and 
 integrity of the Bohemian Crown (1355), and this was 
 reaffirmed by the Habsburgs on their election to the 
 throne (1526). Even after the suppression of Czech 
 liberties by Ferdinand II., and under the long regime 
 of centrahsation and Germanisation that followed, the 
 juridical and constitutional position of the Bohemian State 
 was repeatedly recognised and confirmed by successive 
 Habsburg sovereigns. It was thus only natural that from 
 the very outset of the national revival in the nineteenth 
 century, the Czech leaders, of all shades of opinion, should 
 have insisted upon Bohemia's historic or " State-Rights " 
 as a. weapon in their struggle against German predominance. 
 
 As an alternative to recognising Bohemia's historic 
 frontiers, it is urged that the German districts which lie on 
 the periphery should be allowed to exercise the right of 
 self-determination, and to unite either with Germany or 
 with the rest of German-Austria. A glance at the map 
 will show that three out of the four isolated fragments 
 of which " German-Bohemia " is composed — namely, the 
 north - west or Eger - Karlsbad districts, the north - ea^t 
 or Reichenberg-Trautenau districts, and the Moravian- 
 Silesian group lying between Troppau and Olmutz — are 
 entirely isolated from the rest, of German-Austria, and that 
 their union with the latter is only practicable under a scheme 
 of Austrian federalism such as both Germans and Czechs 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 277 
 
 to-day utterly reject. Administratively, German Bohemia 
 must either form part of the whole or be divided into its 
 several component parts. It thus only remains to consider 
 the idea of their union with Germany, or as it would work 
 out in practice, the union of the various fragments with 
 German- Austria, Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia (if German- 
 Silesia remains part of Prussia) respectively. 
 
 It is natural enough that the Pangermans should insist 
 upon union with Germany, for they know very well that 
 it would place Bohemia entirely at their mercy. Once 
 abandon the frontiers which strategy created and history 
 has maintained, and there is nothing obvious by which they 
 can be replaced. It is true that the districts nearest the 
 frontier tend as a rule to be overwhelmingly German and 
 those in the centre of the country no less overwhelmingly 
 Czech ; but there is no exact Hne of cleavage between the 
 two races, and the Czechs cannot afford to abandon their 
 widely scattered minorities in every German district save 
 perhaps the Egerland and North-West Silesia. A further 
 complication Hes in the absence of really trustworthy 
 statistics, owing to the misuse of the rubric Umgangs- 
 sprache (language usually spoken) in place of the " mother 
 tongue " in the Austrian census returns, and to the whole- 
 sale pressure exercised by German employers to ensure the 
 Germanisation — at least on paper — of helpless Czech 
 minorities. It is known that since the achievement of 
 Bohemian independence flourishing Czech communities of 
 varying sizes have sprung up in places that a year ago were 
 German to all outward seeming. Indeed, it is seriously 
 contended on the Czech side, and not without a considerable 
 show of reason, that the number of Germans in Bohemia 
 indicated by the census is at least 800,000 in excess of the 
 truth. 
 
278 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 While racial sympathies naturally plead for union with 
 their kinsmen beyond the frontier, the Germans of Bohemia 
 find that all their economic interests urge them in a con- 
 trary direction. The natural mountain barrier which 
 separates them from Germany turns their whole outlook 
 towards Prague and the central plateau. There is a 
 natural balance between the mining and industrial districts 
 of the north and the corn-growing districts of the centre. 
 Union with Germany would cut off the former not merely 
 from their best market, but also from the Czech labour upon 
 which they depend, and would expose them to the most 
 formidable competition from the great German industries. 
 Nor need we overlook the more sordid motives which 
 prompt many German-Bohemians to throw in their lot 
 with the new state and thus evade the economic effects of 
 defeat and ostracism which are likely to weigh upon 
 Germany for at least a generation. That separation from 
 Bohemia would spell ruin for the German districts them- 
 selves, was clearly indicated during the later stages of the 
 war, when the Czechs, as part of their political campaign, 
 declined to re victual German-Bohemia, and when it was 
 found that lack of communications made help from Germany 
 or German- Austria impossible. 
 
 The partition of Bohemia would at one and the same 
 time deprive^the new Kepublic of the possibility of defence 
 and destroy its economic independence : and these are 
 undoubtedly among the foremost motives of those who 
 promote the anti-Czech agitation. On the other hand, 
 Bohemia as a unit is self-supporting to an extent equalled 
 by very few other countries, and can provide her own 
 grain and sugar, her own coal and iron ore. Even put at 
 its lowest, the Czech contention is that there is less in- 
 justice in placing two or even two-and-a-half milHon out 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 279 
 
 of seventy million Germans under Czech rule, than in 
 leaving nine million Czecho-Slovaks — in this case the whole 
 race — imder alien rule. Only those who consistently 
 give the preference to enemy rather than friend will 
 challenge such a plea. For the rest there are certain 
 directions (such as the Egerland, or the Jagerndorf district 
 of Silesia — both purely German in character) in which 
 territorial amputations could be made to mutual advantage, 
 and the number of Germans thus materially reduced. It 
 will, in any case, be necessary to guarantee to the German 
 minorities the fullest possible Hnguistic rights in school, 
 church, law-court and local administration, and it is well 
 to empha^se the fact that the Czecho-Slovak Government 
 has not waited for the ruling of the League of Nations on 
 the subject of racial minorities, but has, of its own initiative, 
 annoimced to the Peace Conference its readiness to accept 
 and execute whatever international guarantees may be 
 regarded as necessary. Despite the passions roused by 
 centuries of German domination, the Czechs have every 
 interest to conciliate their German fellow-citizens, and to 
 render their position in the new KepubHc tolerable ; and 
 this is the policy which is being definitely followed by 
 President Masaryk and his advisers. So far from being 
 inconsistent with a Slavophil and Ententophil pohcy, it is 
 the foundation stone upon which healthy foreign relations 
 must rest. 
 
 The Slovak-Magyar Frontier 
 
 The new RepubUc consists roughly of two halves — the 
 lands of the Bohemian Crown and Slovakia — the latter 
 being nearly equal in area to the former, but possessing 
 barely a quarter of its population. In drawing the frontiers 
 
280 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 of Slovakia quite other standards must be applied than 
 those which we have shown to be valid in the case of 
 Bohemia. Slovakia has never formed an independent 
 State, though in the ninth century and until the coming of 
 the Magyars it was the centre of that shortlived and loosely 
 knit " Great Moravian Empire," of which Svatopluk was 
 King and the great Methodius Metropolitan. Save for an 
 interlude during the later Hussite period of the fifteenth 
 century, the Slovaks have remained separated from their 
 Czech kinsmen and subjected to the heavy yoke of the 
 Magyars, who ever since the modern nationalist revival 
 have spared no effort to denationahse the Slovaks, or where 
 this was not possible, to foment distinctions between them 
 and the Czechs and to foster local and particularist 
 tendencies. It is indeed remarkable that a people whom 
 geography and the dehberate policy of its rulers combined 
 to isolate from the main currents of European history 
 should none the less have proved peculiarly responsive to 
 Slav sentiment in its widest sense, and in Kollar, Palacky, 
 Safaiik, and Masaryk should have produced four of the 
 most eminent apostles of the Slav idea. The plain fact is 
 that the Slovaks are one of the most gifted races in all 
 Europe, whose natural artistic, musical, and hterary talents 
 have here and there found an outlet even in the teeth 
 of Magyar oppression, and of whom great things may 
 fairly be expected now that the long tyranny has been 
 shaken off. 
 
 The problem of demarcation is simplified by the fact 
 that on the north the ethnographic line of cleavage corre- 
 sponds with one of the most clearly defined natural frontiers 
 in Europe — the mountainous barrier separating Hungary 
 from Galicia. This will obviously remain unaltered. On 
 the west, of course, the union wipes out the old Hungaro- 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 281 
 
 Moravian boundary ; but from tlie southernmost point of 
 Moravia the river March again provides a natural and 
 linguistic frontier between the Czeclio-Slovak and German- 
 Austrian Republics, as far as its junction with the Danube 
 twelve miles west of Pressburg (now Bratislava). Thus 
 the only serious difficulty is to devise a satisfactory line 
 between the Slovaks and the Magyars. 
 
 Here, as everywhere else in Europe, the problem re- 
 solves itself into a compromise between ethnography and 
 geography ; but it is obvious that the first essential must 
 be an attempt to get as near as possible to the true racial 
 boundary. The main lines of such a result can be obtained 
 from the official Magyar census figures, and it is these 
 which we have deliberately used in the present article. 
 It is notorious that the results which they contain are in 
 every case unduly favourable to the Magyar element ; but 
 since 90 per cent of the essential facts can be proved out of 
 the mouth of the enemy himself, the extreme course of 
 rejecting all Magyar statistics as unreliable and " tenden- 
 tious " would simply leave us, in the position of having 
 virtually no material whatever to work upon. Before, 
 however, a sure and final verdict on the remaining ten per 
 cent can be obtained, it will certainly be necessary to send 
 an impartial international boundary commission to study 
 conditions on the spot ; and it is safe to assume that in 
 that case the numbers of the Magyars in Northern Hungary 
 (as indeed in Transylvania and the south) wiU be found to 
 have been vastly exaggerated. One simple proof of this is 
 the fact that according to the statistics of 1910 the total 
 number of Slovaks is given as 1,967,970, but the number of 
 persons speaking Slovak as 2,776,743. As it is only too 
 notorious that hardly any Magyar (even an official whose 
 duty it is to do so) condescends to learn Slovak, the balance 
 
282 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 between these two figures must obviously consist in the 
 main of artificially Magyarised Slovaks. 
 
 It is necessary to point out that throughout the northern 
 counties the Magyar element consists mainly of officials 
 (administrative, judicial, or educational) imported from 
 Central or Southern Hungary to hold down the Slovaks, 
 and of a certain number of Magyarised Slovaks who have 
 yielded to political pressure or forsworn their nationality 
 in return for some local position. Of these, the former will 
 automatically withdraw to Hungary, while the latter will 
 speedily rediscover their Slovak nationality. When this 
 natural process is complete the number of Magyars will be 
 negligible. This, of course, does not apply in the same 
 degree to the districts close to the ethnographic frontier, 
 where there are many pure Magyar villages interspersed 
 with Slav. 
 
 The Slovak counties fall naturally into three groups : 
 
 (1) seven where the population is predominantly Slovak ; 
 
 (2) seven which are in great majority Slovak, but portions 
 of which are mixed and therefore debatable ; and (3) five 
 which contain Magyar majorities, certscin portions of which 
 it will be necessary to sacrifice in order to attain a tolerable 
 frontier. In the following tables these groups are divided 
 for practical purposes into two categories : (I.) what can 
 fairly be assigned without further question to the Czecho- 
 slovak Republic, and (11.) debatable districts which ought, 
 if the Paris Conference still has the time and energy, to form 
 the subject of a special inquiry on the spot, rather than 
 be carved up arbitrarily by ill-informed diplomats at a 
 distance : 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 283 
 
 I 
 
 (A) — Overwhelmingly Slovak Counties 
 
 Slovak. Magyar. German. Total. 
 
 Tren^in (Trencsen) 284,770 13,204 9,029 310,437 
 
 Turec (Turocz) . , 38,432 5,560 10,993 55,703 
 
 Orava (Arva) . 59,096 2,000 1,518 78,745 1 
 
 Liptov (Lipto) . 78,098 4,365 2,591 86,906 
 
 Zvolen (Zolyom) . 113,294 16,509 2,124 133,653 
 
 Spis (Szepes, Zips) 97,077 18,658 38,434 172,867 2 
 
 Sarys (SAros) . 101,855 18,088 9,447 174,620 2 
 
 Total (.4) . 772,622 78,384 74,136 1,012,931 
 
 {B) — Counties with Slovak majority {deducting debatable districts) 
 
 1. Prespurk : Slovak. Magyar. German. Total, 
 
 (o) Five districts N. of 
 
 Danube 3 . . 137,237 64,749 12,912 218,876 
 
 (6) Town of Pressburg 11,673 31,705 32,790 78,223 
 (c) Tov^Tis of Timova, 
 Bazin, Modor, and 
 
 St. George . 
 
 16,695 
 
 6,156 
 
 5,279 
 
 28,439 
 
 2. Nitra: 
 
 
 
 
 
 (a) Ten country dis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 tricts * 
 
 283,021 
 
 36,065 
 
 24,959 
 
 337,698 
 
 {b) Towns of Nitra and 
 
 
 
 
 
 Skalice 
 
 9,084 
 
 10,259 
 
 1,895 
 
 21,437 
 
 3. Tekov (Bars) : 
 
 
 
 
 
 (a) Four country dis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 tricts ^ 
 
 81,938 
 
 24,216 
 
 15,455 
 
 122,531 
 
 (6) Towns of Kjemnice 
 
 
 
 
 
 and Ujbanya 
 
 5,738 
 
 1,971 
 
 1,593 
 
 94,883 
 
 9,328 
 
 Carry forward . 
 
 545,386 
 
 175,121 
 
 816,532 
 
 ^ The County of Orava has always contained the highest per- 
 centage of Slovaks (947 per cent in 1900); but in 1910 the Magyar 
 statistics suddenly discovered the existence of 16,120 Poles, thus 
 conveniently reducing the Slovaks to 75 per cent. This fictitious 
 change rests on the obvious fact that along the linguistic frontier the 
 Slovak dialect shows certain PoHsh (as also Ruthene) influences. 
 
 2 There are also 50,827 Ruthenes (12,327 in Spis, 38,500 in garys). 
 
 ^ MalaCky, Tirnova, Senc, Prespurk, Galanta. 
 
 * Galgocz, Myjava, Topoldany, Nitra, Zamky, Pistany, Prievidza, 
 Skalice, Senica, N. Mesto. 
 
 ^ Zlata Moravce, Garam Szt Kereszt, Oslany, Vrable. 
 
284 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 {B) — Counties with Slovak Majority {continued) 
 
 SIo\ak. Magyar. German. Total. 
 Brought forward 545,386 175,121 94,883 816,532 
 
 4. Hont : 
 
 (a) Two country dis- 
 tricts (Batovce and 
 Krupina) . . 29,018 3,659 217 48,479 
 
 (6) Town of Stavnica 
 
 (Selmeczbanya) . 8,341 6,340 453 15,185 
 
 5. Novohrad (Nograd) : 
 
 Country district of 
 Gacs . . . 19,633 1,557 56 21,679 
 
 6. Gemer : 
 
 (a) Three country dis- 
 tricts (Sobata, Ga- 
 ramvolgy, Revuca) 44,768 11,894 361 58,394 
 
 (6) Towns of Rima So- 
 bata, Revuca, Jol- 
 sva and Dobsina . 3,364 11,227 1,858 16,712 
 
 7. Zemplln : 
 
 Five country dis- 
 tricts ^ . . 80,917 23,978 5,954 121,627 
 
 Total (^) . . 731,367 233,776 103,207 1,098,608 
 
 Total (^ and 5) . 1,503,989 312,160 177,918 2,111,539 
 
 II 
 
 Prespurk (Grosse Schiitt) . 412 
 
 Nitra (Ersekujvdr, VagseUye) 32,559 
 Tekov (Levice) . . .10,148 
 
 Komarom (north of Danube) 3,051 
 Esztergom (north of Danube) 908 
 Hont (Ipolysag, Ipolynyek, 
 
 Szob, Vamosmikola . 10,703 62,732 6,393 79,761 
 
 Novohrad (Novohrad, Lucenec 
 
 and towns of Lucenec and 
 
 Balasa) 
 Gemer (RimaseC, Putnok, 
 
 Roznava) 
 Abauj-Toma (Fiizer and 
 
 Kosice) town of Kosice . 
 Zemplin (Satoralja) 
 
 60,757 
 
 2,841 
 
 64,212 
 
 54,000 
 
 1,103 
 
 88,320 
 
 35,835 
 
 318 
 
 46,641 
 
 78,379 
 
 142 
 
 81,747 
 
 36,075 
 
 77 
 
 37,092 
 
 33,527 
 
 77,944 
 
 2,134 
 
 114,838 
 
 16,583 
 
 65,922 
 
 600 
 
 84,080 
 
 33,300 
 
 4,988 
 
 61,410 
 37,145 
 
 3,694 
 42 
 
 100.779 
 42,937 
 
 146,179 570,199 17,344 740,4^7 
 ^ Galszecs, Humonne, V. Mikulas, Varanno, Stropko. 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 285 
 
 It is not of course to be assumed that anything like the 
 whole of these debatable districts will be assigned to the 
 Slovaks, but somewhere within them the final frontier will 
 ■have to be drawn. The Grosse Schiitt — the rich territory 
 forming an island between the two arms of the Danube 
 east of Pressburg — is claimed by the Czechs as necessary 
 for their control of the river, though it contains only a 
 few hundred Slovaks in over 100,000 Magyars. It is true 
 that its economic interests lie to the north rather than 
 the south. On the other hand, the town of Pressburg 
 (now rechristened Bratislava), which contains a German- 
 Magyar majority but is surrounded by Slovak territory, is 
 vitally needed by the new State as its Danubian port and 
 hence as a means of commercial access to the Balkans and 
 the Black Sea. 
 
 Farther east the provisional frontier assigned to the new 
 Eepublic follows the Danube from Komarom to the mouth 
 of the Ipol, and thus assures to the Slovaks the whole course 
 of their chief river, the Vah, and the two lesser rivers, Nitra 
 and Hron. The advantages of securing this natural 
 frontier are, of course, very great ; but the Conference may 
 conceivably decide to be guided by direct investigations as 
 to the racial character of the districts lying immediately to 
 the north of the Danube. It will probably be found that 
 their Magyarism is for the most part little more than a 
 poHtical veneer imposed by the pecuhar circumstances of 
 the last two generations. 
 
 The provisional frontier follows the Ipol to no great 
 distance from its source, and then, leaving the foothills 
 near Kimovska, strikes diagonally north-eastwards until it 
 reaches the Ung river near Uzhorod (Ungvar), on the line 
 of cleavage between Slovaks and Kuthenes. It is probably 
 safe to assume that in its essentials this line will be made 
 
286 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 permanent, and that the extreme Czech claim, comprising 
 such towns as Vacz and Miskolcz and the mining district of 
 Salgotarjan, which is so vital to the Magyars, will be dis- 
 allowed. The main interest of the Czecho-Slovaks, as of 
 every State under the new dispensation, is to be saddled 
 with as few, not as many, alien subjects as possible ; and 
 it will be an unmixed blessing for Prague if it can find safe 
 devices for paring down certain sections of the frontier and 
 so reducing the number of its German and Magyar subjects. 
 Attention must, however, be drawn to the fact that 
 while several hundred thousand Magyars will inevitably be 
 included in Czecho-Slovakia, the Slovaks, on their side, will 
 be obliged to sacrifice a number of flourishing colonies — 
 amounting to 226,972, according to the official figures, and 
 probably far more numerous — which lie scattered in the 
 plains of Central and Southern Hungary, and which, owing 
 to their geographical position, must necessarily remain in 
 the Hungarian Republic (or even in Jugoslavia). Of these 
 the most important are in Bekes Co. (66,770) ; the Backa 
 (30,137) ; Pest Co. (26,681) ; Budapest (20,359) ; Csanad 
 Co. (17,133) ; Torontal Co. (16,143). Thus, an exact racial 
 division being impossible, the existence of small racial 
 minorities on either side of the new frontier may be regarded 
 as a guarantee of mutual tolerance, if, as is only too probable, 
 any attempt to exchange them should break down in face 
 of the peasants' attachment to the soil. 
 
 The Ruthenes of Hungary 
 
 Intimately connected with the problem of the new Slovak- 
 Magyar frontier is the fate of the Ruthenes of Hungary, 
 hitherto the most isolated and helpless of all the non-Magyar 
 races. Their total number in 1910 was, according to official 
 statistics, 464,259, distributed mainly as follows : 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 287 
 
 §arys (Saros) . . 33,988 Bereg . . . 95,302 
 
 Spis (Szepes) . . 14,333 Ugocsa . . . 32,721 
 
 Zemplin . . , 34,831 Maramura^ . . 143,621 
 
 Uzhorod (Ung) . . 55,742 
 
 Isolated in their Carpathian valleys, the Ruthenes have 
 little or no history or tradition, and even up to the outbreak 
 of the present war had remained practically without any 
 connections with their kinsmen on the northern slopes. 
 They are the descendants of successive waves of colonists, 
 introduced by the Hungarian kings as guarantees of the 
 frontier ; the main body arrived* in 1340, under the leader- 
 ship of their prince Theodore Koriatovic, to whom Louis 
 the Great granted the town and castle of Munkac. Origin- 
 ally Orthodox by religion, they accepted the Uniate rite, 
 which had been adopted by so large a proportion of the 
 Little Russians in Poland ; but it was not until late in the 
 eighteenth century that they had bishops of their own. 
 Almost from the first the Magyars contrived to exert control 
 over the Ruthenian hierarchy and clergy within the borders 
 of Hungary ; and since the Ausgleich of 1867 this control 
 tightened year by year, until the Church, so long a bulwark 
 of their distinctive national character, was in danger of 
 becoming a mere instrument of their Magyarisation. It 
 has been the very definite policy of the Magyars to prevent 
 any national movement among the Ruthenes, to keep them 
 without intellectual leaders and to promote so far as possible 
 their complete absorption. The methods employed are 
 best illustrated by the fact that at the outbreak of war the 
 Ruthenes had not a single school, secondary or primary, in 
 which their language was taught, no political newspaper of 
 any kind, and practically no periodical literature. On the 
 other hand, they had a higher percentage of illiterates and 
 a higher percentage of emigrants than any other race in 
 Hungary, and among them economic exploitation by the 
 
288 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 great landed proprietors, by the Magyar officials, and by 
 the Jewish traders and innkeepers had reached its height. 
 Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that 
 such leaders of opposition as the Ruthenes of Hungary 
 possess, should look back upon Magyar rule as upon a long 
 and evil nightmare, and should rely upon the Peace Confer- 
 ence to secure for them a settlement such as will render 
 possible their free national development in the future. The 
 basis for this has been provided by the proposals made to 
 Professor Masaryk last autumn by representative deputa- 
 tions of the so-called " Carpatho-Ruthene," and " Ugro- 
 Russian " colonies in the United States, and to the Czecho- 
 slovak Premier, Dr. Kramar, last December by a deputation 
 of the local Ruthenian National Council in Munkac — in 
 favour of the Ruthenes forming an autonomous province 
 inside the Czecho-Slovak Republic. It is known that the 
 Czecho-Slovak Government is not prepared to accept such 
 an arrangement unless it represents the clear wishes of the 
 population, and unless it has the certainty that the result 
 would not be to embroil the new republic either with Poland 
 or the Ukraine. As, however, there appears to be no desire 
 either at Munkac or at Lemberg for union between the 
 Ruthenes of Hungary and the Ukrainian districts of Galicia, 
 and as Poland on its side, in the event of its securing the 
 whole of Galicia for itself, would naturally not desire to 
 annex an additional half-million Ruthenes, these difficulties 
 do not exist ; and all that remains would be to verify the 
 representative character of the delegations by a possible 
 plebiscite. Other things being equal, this arrangement has 
 the double advantage of providing a common frontier 
 between Czecho-Slovalda and Roumania and of maintaining 
 the Carpathian watershed as the former's natural frontier 
 to the north. 
 
CZECHOSLOVAK CLAIMS 289 
 
 Should the principle of union with Czecho-Slovakia be 
 accepted by the Peace Conference, it would obviously be on 
 the basis of a special autonomy for the Ruthenes, and the 
 precise manner in which the western border of this autono- 
 mous province was drawn would be a purely internal matter 
 for the new repubhc, to be arranged between Prague and 
 Munkac, and hence it need not concern us here. 
 
 The Ruthene districts may be grouped in the following 
 two categories : 
 
 (A) — Predominantly Ruthene 
 
 
 
 •Ruthene. 
 
 Slovak. 
 
 Magyar. 
 
 German. 
 
 Total. 
 
 I 
 
 Zemplin : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Two country districts^ 
 
 33,565 
 
 6,668 
 
 1,605 
 
 3,085 
 
 46,425 
 
 w4 . 
 
 Uzhorod : 
 
 {a) Five country dis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tricts 2 , 
 
 61,044 
 
 18,788 
 
 18,628 
 
 6,959 
 
 116,723 
 
 
 (6) Town 
 
 641 
 
 1,219 
 
 13,590 
 
 1,151 
 
 16,919 
 
 3. 
 
 Bereg : 
 
 • (a) Four country dis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tricts ^ . 
 
 75,133 
 
 15,950 
 
 11,750 
 
 15,950 
 
 104,274 
 
 
 (6) MunkaCTown . 
 
 1,394 
 
 3,078 
 
 12,686 
 
 3,078 
 
 17,275 
 
 4. 
 
 Maramuras : 
 
 Roumanian. 
 
 
 
 
 Five country districts * 
 
 125,147 
 
 271 
 
 17,287 
 
 25,266 
 
 168,648 
 
 « 
 
 296,924R 
 
 . 45,703S. 
 
 75,546M. 
 
 55,489G. 470,264 
 
 (B)— Debatable 
 
 1. Uzhorod (Nagykapos) . 26 6,357 21,606 273 28,447 
 
 2. Bereg : 
 
 (a) Tiszahdt, Mezo- 
 
 Kaszony . 1,622 .. 68,235 224 70,224 
 
 (6) Beregszasz Town 221 .. 12,432 140 12,933 
 
 Roumanian. 
 
 3. Ugocsa (Tiszainnen) . 24,133 29 17,572 2,918 44,789 
 
 26,002R. 6,357S. 119,8 45M. 3,555G. 156,393 
 
 ^ Szinna, Laborcz. 
 
 2 Berezna, Perecseny, Szerednye, Szobrancz, Uzhorod. 
 
 3 Solva, Verecke, Latorca, MunkdC. 
 
 * Dolha, Hust, Okormezo, Taraczvicz, Tiszavolgy. 
 
 U 
 
290 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 It will be seen from these tables that certain portions of 
 the counties of Bereg, Uzhorod, and Zemplin will have to 
 be deducted from autonomous Ruthenia and assigned to 
 Slovakia proper, whereas it may be found advisable to add 
 to the former those parts of Sarys and Spis counties which 
 are Ruthene in character. 
 
 As between Ruthenes and Roumanians the River Tisza 
 provides at once an ethnographic and geographical frontier. 
 Only here and there modifications may be required, in order 
 to ensure that the very important railway line up the Tisza 
 valley remains on one side of the frontier, from the junction 
 of Capp to the outskirts of the town of Maramuras, which 
 will, of course, be Roumanian. This railway will be the 
 main line of communication between Czecho-Slovakia and 
 Roumania and Southern Russia, between Prague, Czer- 
 nowitz, Jassy, Kiev, and Odessa. It is, therefore, probably 
 inevitable that the railway junctions of Capp and Satoralja- 
 ujhely should be assigned to the Czechs, even though this 
 involves the sacrifice of some 25,000 Magyars. Otherwise 
 there would be no railway connection between Slovakia 
 and Ruthenia save through Magyar territory, and both the 
 through routes already mentioned and the main Prague- 
 Lemberg-Kiev route (on which also the Czechs set the 
 utmost store, as securing their direct connection with the 
 restored Russia of the future) would be cut. This adjust- 
 ment of the frontier leaves Kosice, a Magyarised town in 
 predominantly Slovak surroimdings, and Satoralja to the 
 Slovaks, but saves the Calvinist centre of Sarospatak and 
 the valuable vineyards of Tokaj for the Magyars. 
 
 In conclusion, it should be mentioned that the new 
 Ruthene province will be confronted by a most difficult 
 economic and social problem, owing to the presence of an 
 altogether disproportionate number of Jews (for the most 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 291 
 
 part comparatively recent immigrants from Galicia). In 
 the seven counties inhabited by the Kuthenes there are no 
 fewer than 181,Q30 Jews, or 11-8 per cent (8arys, 12,323 ; 
 Spis, 7475 ; Zemplin, 35,041 ; Uzhorod, 17,587 ; Bereg, 
 33,660, or 14 per cent of total population in county ; Ugocsa, 
 11,850, or 12-9 per cent ; Maramuras, 65,694, or 184 per 
 cent) out of a total population of 1,530,841. In the dis- 
 tricts summarised in Table A (p. 289) there are 62,861. 
 The fact that the Slovak and Roumanian peasantry of 
 Hungary have, by the aid of local banks and co-operative 
 societies, emancipated themselves from Jewish control and 
 from the terrible usury which prevailed twenty or even ten 
 years ago, helps to explain why the Jewish population 
 has tended to concentrate among the backward Ruthene 
 population, whom systematic. Magyarisation had left alto- 
 gether without leaders and wellnigh incapable of self-help. 
 
 The Czecho-Polish Feontier 
 
 The question of Austrian Silesia has given rise to an acute 
 conflict between the Governments of Prague and Warsaw, 
 into the merits of which we do not propose to enter. Here, 
 as on the Adriatic, in the Banat, in Eastern Galicia, and at 
 Danzig, the procrastination and bungling of the Entente 
 Powers have envenomed and magnified differences which 
 at the outset coidd have been settled with comparative 
 ease. The result is an estrangement between two sister 
 nations, which is not only highly regrettable in itself, but 
 gravely endangers the natural political development of all 
 the newly constituted States of Central and Eastern Europe. 
 
 On a basis of historic right, Silesia unquestionably 
 belongs to Bohemia, with which the duchies of Oppeln, 
 Teschen, Ratibor, and Bentheim were incorporated during 
 
292 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the reign of Charles IV. (1355). Of these, the two latter 
 were forcibly annexed by Frederick the Great with the rest 
 of what is now Prussian Silesia ; but Teschen and fragments 
 of Oppeln, separated from each other by a tiny strip of 
 Moravia, continued under the sceptre of the Habsburgs, as 
 heirs of the Crown of St. Wenceslas. On a basis of ethno- 
 graphy none of the three races which make up the popula- 
 tion has the majority, and it' would be necessary to partition 
 both sections of the little province. In the case of the 
 north-western section, the districts of Freiwaldau and 
 Jagerndorf are overwhelmingly German, and might, with 
 advantage, be ceded to Germany or exchanged for the 
 neighbouring Prussian district of Glatz, where tliere are 
 over 60,000 Czechs. In any case Troppau and the mixed 
 or mainly Czech districts to the south of it would obviously 
 remain untouched. Similarly, on a purely ethnographic 
 basis, the duchy of Teschen would be divided into two 
 unequal parts, the smaller and western falHng to the Czechs, 
 the eastern, with the town of Teschen itself — which is in 
 the main neither Czech nor Polish, but German — falling to 
 the Poles. 
 
 But neither history nor ethnography will settle the 
 question. The Poles, who in the east claim the frontiers 
 of 1772, and in the name of " historic rights " would fain 
 annex many millions of Ukrainians, Germans, White 
 Russians, and Lithuanians, have no cause for complaint 
 if on the west the Czechs in their turn invoke the same 
 principle as an excuse for including 250,000 Poles in their 
 new State. But though logic forbids the Poles to claim 
 Silesia unless they relinquish Eastern Gaiicia, it equally 
 forbids the Czechs to claim Slovakia unless they yield up 
 the German districts of Bohemia. In both cases history 
 and ethnography are at variance, and in both cases a 
 
CZECHO-SLOVAK CLAIMS 293 
 
 compromise must be sought between them and yet other, 
 mainly economic, factors. The Czechs do not claim the 
 eastern and admittedly Polish district of Bielitz ; but they 
 are entitled to insist that the possession of the railway 
 running from Oderberg through Teschen into Slovakia, and 
 also of the coalfields between Oderberg and Karvin, is of 
 vital importance to them, and that they should be included in 
 Czecho-SlovaMa even though this involves the retention of 
 100,000 PoUsh inhabitants. Industrially there can be no 
 question whatever that the prosperity of the Moravian mine- 
 fields and other industries is bound up with the possession 
 of Karvin, and that as northern Slovakia tends to become 
 industrialised — a process which is likely to be rapid in the 
 next few years^ — it, too, wiU be dependent upon the same 
 source of supply. It is also pointed out that Poland is 
 already extremely rich in coal and has no need to insist 
 upon a district which is small in area, whose population is 
 already fluid and more interested in social than in national 
 tendencies, and which is of tenfold greater relative value to 
 Bohemia than to Poland. As, however, the Czechs could 
 retain the essential part of the Karvin district, while 
 probably not annexing more than 30,000 Poles, it ought to 
 be comparatively easy to reach a compromise on this point. ' 
 The railway presents greater difficulties, for the simple 
 reason that larger numbers of Poles are involved. Here, 
 however, the decision must rest with technical experts. 
 AU will agree that direct railway communication between 
 Prague and Slovakia through northern Moravia and Silesia 
 is an essential need of the new State, and that owing to the 
 configuration of the land along the former Austro-Hungarian 
 frontier, and also to the railway policy of the Magyars, 
 •there is no other line available, save the unsatisfactory 
 Vlara Pass route considerably farther south. If, as some 
 
294 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 contend, an alternative railway can be quickly and easily 
 constructed, such as would linlc up the old Nordbahn (the 
 main Vienna-Cracow line) with the Slovak junction of 
 Zilina (Zsolna), it might be possible to induce the Czechs to 
 modify their claim to Teschen, though even in that case a 
 condominium would obviously be necessary for some years 
 until the completion of the new line, and the Poles might 
 fairly be asked to bear the expense of the necessary tunnel- 
 ling. Faihng such an alternative route, however, it is safe 
 to assume that the Peace Conference will allow the Czechs 
 to retain the present railway, while leaving the more 
 easterlv district to Poland. 
 
 There remain three further questions which the Czecho- 
 slovak Government urges upon the careful consideration of 
 the Conference, while very wisely differentiating between 
 them and the absolutely vital problems of German-Bohemia 
 and Slovakia, and therefore declaring itself from the outset 
 ready to defer to the impartial ruling of the Associated 
 Powers. These concern the Czech minority in Vienna, the 
 Lusatian Sorbs, and the project for a " Corridor " connect- 
 ing Czecho-Slovakia and Jugoslavia. 
 
 The official Austrian statistics admit the presence of 
 102,000 Czechs and Slovaks in Vienna at the census of 1910 ; 
 but it is notorious that they were in reality two or three 
 times more numerous. Even the Czech estimate of 400,000 
 may easily be true, if all those of Czech birth or parentage 
 are included ; but probably little less than half of that 
 total may be regarded as having lost their national senti- 
 ment and become definitely Germanised. (The German 
 Jingo demagogue Bielohlawek is an admirable instance of 
 the process by which pure Czech families passed to the 
 opposite extreme during the last few generations.) The 
 poUcy of the Vienna municipality in first discouraging and 
 
CZECHOSLOVAK CLAIMS 295 
 
 then (in 1913) actually closing and forbidding the " Komen- 
 sky " schools which patriotic Czechs maintained in Vienna 
 by voluntary subscriptions, was a permanent cause of 
 friction between the two races. The Czechs are entitled to 
 demand proper linguistic guarantees for the Czech minority 
 in Vienna, which is likely to survive, even though reduced 
 in numbers ; but any such privileges will naturally be 
 made contingent upon the extension of the fullest possible 
 " rights of minority " to the Germans of Bohejiiia. Thus 
 reciprocity is likely to prove the most practical basis for a 
 settlement of this particular question. 
 
 In the case of the Lusatian Sorbs, as in that of the 
 Viennese Czechs, it is obvious that union with Bohemia 
 is quite impracticable. To-day their numbers are esti- 
 mated at 160,000, their chief towns being Cottbus, Gorlitz, 
 Bautzen and Zittau. Utterly isolated and exposed to the 
 growing danger of Germanisation, they have inevitably 
 looked for help and sympathy to the Czechs as their only 
 near kinsmen ; and Prague feels morally bound to plead 
 their cause at the Conference. The most, however, that 
 can be hoped for them is that they should be assured a local 
 autonomy of their own within the German Federal Republic, 
 and that they should all be grouped in a single unit and no 
 longer partitioned between Saxony and Prussian Silesia. 
 
 Bohemia has many natural advantages, but all are 
 overshadowed by its landlocked position in the centre of 
 Europe ; and no one can blame the Czechs for their desire 
 to secure some kind of access to the sea which will assure 
 their trade connections with the outer world. But they 
 were not so happily inspired when they put forward the 
 so-called Corridor project, by which they would annex a 
 strip of territory 125 miles long by 25 miles broad, running 
 from the Danube on the north to the Drave on the south, 
 
296 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and comprising most of the four Hungarian counties of 
 Moson, Sopron (Oedenburg), Vas, and Zala, with a popula- 
 tion of 700,000, of whom only a quarter, under the most 
 liberal estimate, are Slavs. This utterly artificial structure 
 would separate the Hungarian and German- Austrian Ee- 
 pubUcs, and would be a perpetual challenge to the former. 
 In war it would be indefensible, and would have to be 
 evacuated ; while in peace its object can easily be attained 
 by other and less questionable means. If Bohemia and 
 Jugoslavia are closely united in their commercial and fiscal 
 policy, it will always be in their power to prevent Hungary 
 — humbled and reduced as she will be — from pursuing her 
 pernicious old policy of artificial railway tariffs and trade 
 restrictions. 
 
 The Czechs are on much firmer ground when they openly 
 demand the " internationalisation " of the Danube, Elbe, 
 and Vistula, and of the main trans-European railways — in 
 particular, Prague - Pressburg - Trieste (Fiume) ; Prague- 
 Kosice - Jassy - Odessa ; Prague - Budapest - Belgrade - Con- 
 stantinople ; Prague - Lemberg - Kiev - Moscow ; Paris- 
 Strasbourg - Niirnberg - Prague - Cracow - Warsaw ; Paris- 
 Milan - Trieste - Zagreb - Belgrade - Bucarest. This whole 
 question requires special detailed treatment ; but it must 
 from the first be obvious that it raises one of the most vital 
 factors in the whole peace settlement, and if fairly and 
 effectively dealt with in conjunction with frontier revision, 
 might revolutionise the whole relations of the various 
 continental States and lav the basis of a new era. 
 
ITALY, JUGOSLAVIA, AND THE SECRET 
 
 TREATY! 
 
 " We do not think we are wrong," wrote the Weser Zeitung, 
 in December 1916, " in regarding the Adriatic question as 
 the surest source of future discord within the ranks of the 
 present Allies." The grave events of which Fiume and 
 Ljubljana (Laibach) have lately been the scene, and which 
 are the direct and natural result of the unsound principles 
 underlying the Austro-Hungarian Armistice, are giving 
 point to the enemy's comment, and convince us of the need 
 for plain speech, before the growing breach between the 
 Italians and Jugoslavs becomes irreparable. The general 
 pubHc in Entente countries is naturally overjoyed at the 
 return of peace and apt to forget the many vital unsolved 
 problems which he beyond its ken, but it is none the less a 
 dangerous policy to keep it deliberately in ignorance of the 
 abyss which is opening at its very feet. 
 
 The relations between Italy and the Jugoslavs are one 
 of the pivotal problems of the war and its settlement, both 
 as regards the fulfilment of the public pledges towards " the 
 smaU nations," and also as regards the whole future fate of 
 the territories once known as the Habsburg Monarchy. 
 
 ^ From The New Europe, vol. ix. No. Ill, November 28, 1918, 
 and vol. ix. No. 114, December 19, 1918. 
 
 297 
 
298 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Despite considerable abuse and some genuine misunder- 
 standing, The New Europe has steadily worked for the 
 cause of Italo-Jugoslav friendship, and remains to-day- 
 more than ever persuaded of the necessity for such a friend- 
 ship as an important factor in restoring peaceful and ordered 
 conditions in South-Eastern Europe. But though it has 
 hitherto been possible to make out a case for not probing 
 too deeply the causes which have hampered the attainment 
 of a complete and cordial understanding between the two 
 peoples, it is clear that the moment has now come when only 
 a frank recognition of the facts can save us from disastrous 
 decisions. 
 
 The root of the whole evil lies in the secret treaty con- 
 cluded on April 26, 1915, by Great Britain, France, and 
 Russia with Italy. The main lines of this iniquitous 
 arrangement had already leaked out soon after its con- 
 clusion, but it was not until the Bolseviks obtained control 
 in Petrograd that the actual text of the treaty became 
 known ; and to this day only two British newspapers — the 
 Manchester Guardian and The New Eurojie — have dared 
 to acquaint their readers with its sacred contents. The 
 territorial concessions thus secured by Italy include, not 
 merely Southern Tirol to the Brenner, Gorizia, Trieste, the 
 line of the Julian Alps to near Fiume, and the whole of 
 Istria (with the islands of Lussin and Cherso), but also the 
 whole of Northern Dalmatia, including Zara, Sebenico and 
 their hinterland, and even the southern islands of Lissa, 
 Lesina, Curzola, and Meleda. This involves the annexa- 
 tion of nearly three - quarters of a million Slovenes 
 and Croats, living in compact masses and with a keenly 
 developed national consciousness. 
 
 The secret treaty was based upon entirely false premises, 
 which have long since been proved incapable of supporting 
 
ITALY AND JUGOSLAVIA 299 
 
 sound conclusions. It was drawn up in an entirely difier- 
 ent world, which three more years of war have literally 
 blown to fragments, and only the blindest of the blind 
 could delude themselves with the belief that it could be 
 executed under present conditions. Not merely was it a 
 secret contract, concluded behind the backs of the peoples 
 upon whom it is alleged to be binding. This, though a 
 grave defect, was thoroughly in accordance with those 
 principles of old-world diplomacy which, even in the year 
 1915, determined the action of London, Paris, Petrograd, 
 and Rome. But what gives this treaty a peculiarly fla- 
 grant character is the fact that its framers were, from the 
 first, well aware that it could only be imposed in direct 
 defiance of the wishes of the populations most immediately 
 concerned, and that Serbia in her position of trustee for her 
 kinsmen could never become a party to such a betrayal. 
 Consequently, the Italian Government insisted, as a pre- 
 liminary to negotiations, that the whole transaction should 
 be concealed from the knowledge of the Serbian Govern- 
 ment ; and so strictly was this secret observed that but 
 for the keen wit and energy of the exiled Croat leader Frano 
 Supilo, the bargain might have long remained utterly 
 unsuspected. 
 
 By abandoning to an alien rule something like 700,000 
 of the very Slavs among whom the movement for national 
 unity had struck deepest root, and by allowing strategic 
 reasons to outweigh the wishes of the inhabitants, the 
 Entente statesmen stultified the programme of the Rights 
 of Small Nations which they had so often and so loudly 
 proclaimed. Moreover, they paid for Italy's adhesion, 
 not with their own property, but with the property and 
 indeed with the very life-blood, of other nations whom 
 they did not deign to consult. If these statesmen to-day 
 
300 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 are embarrassed by the refusal of the Jugoslavs to be used 
 as the small change in an illicit bargain, the least that 
 they can do is to buy out Italy with property of which 
 they are entitled to dispose ; and they may be thankful if 
 the Allied peoples do not punish them for a transaction 
 which in private life would render its authors liable to penal 
 servitude. 
 
 Meanwhile, quite apart from all moral considerations, 
 the terms of the treaty are entirely meaningless, save on 
 the assumption that Austria-Hungary is to survive as a 
 Great Power ; and yet it is superfluous to point out that 
 it was above all the cry of " Delenda Austria " which 
 nerved Italy to so prolonged a contest. Now that the dis- 
 solution which Baron Sonnino steadily declined to regard 
 as possible has become an accomplished fact, the whole 
 bottom has in any case been knocked out of the agreement. . 
 It is an open secret that the territorial line laid down in the 
 convention differs materially from that advocated by 
 Italian naval experts and was inserted through the efforts 
 of a small political clique in Kome. The submarine prob- 
 lem has so completely revolutionised naval conditions, 
 that the reasons adduced for occupying as far as Cape 
 Planka would only become really valid if Italy occupied 
 the whole coast as far as Antivari ; and, in any case, she 
 merely tends to replace naval by still more serious military 
 liabilities. In Professor Salvemini's words ("La Questione 
 dell' Adriatico," p. 167), " Kome, having occupied the Dal- 
 matian coast to safeguard Adriatic commerce against the 
 pirates, had, under Augustus, to occupy the hinterland as 
 far as the Danube, to safeguard Dalmatia. When the Slavs 
 occupied the basin of the Save, Dalmatia also was lost for 
 the Empire. The Venetians, who occupied the coast, were 
 long troubled in their possession by Slavs, Magyars, and 
 
ITALY AND JUGOSLAVIA 301 
 
 Turks. And Austria, when mistress of Dalmatia, had in 
 her turn to occupy Bosnia. Does Italy wish to submit 
 to the same necessity ? " If Italy, after enforcing her 
 claims under this convention, were to become involved in 
 war with the Jugoslavs, her whole Dalmatian position would 
 at once be untenable, or, at best, large forces would be locked 
 up in an unprofitable and precarious expedition across the 
 sea. Thus the only critics who can be found to justify the 
 treaty are not the sailors and soldiers, but the politicians 
 who framed it and who see their reputation at stake. 
 History will pass upon it the verdict that it combined the 
 maximum of immorality with the minimum of advantage, 
 whether military, naval, political, or economic. 
 
 The blame for this treaty does not rest with Italy alone : 
 it is shared equally by Britain, France, and Tsarist Russia. 
 But while the other three Foreign Ministers who concluded 
 it have long since fallen, Baron Sonnino still remains at his 
 post, and with usurious stubbornness seeks to hold the 
 Allies to their bond. For over two years he maintained 
 a rigorous censorship against the Slavophil currents in 
 Italian public opinion, and even since this was relaxed he 
 has continued the practice of sending as propagandists of the 
 Italian cause abroad the fiercest of anti-Slavonic fire-eaters. 
 The Western Allies on their part have done nothing to 
 bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind, and he has 
 enjoyed the signal advantage of possessing in the Frenph 
 and British Ambassadors to the Quirinal two charming 
 but weak enthusiasts for his person whom long residence 
 has made more Itahan than the Italians. 
 
 The effect of the treaty, when hints as to its contents 
 trickled through to Austria, was exactly that which all 
 competent observers had prophesied at the time. Italy, 
 who by unreservedly entering the war upon the basis of 
 
302 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the Mazzinian principle of liberation, could have rallied all 
 the subject-races of Austria-Hungary to her standard, saw 
 herself regarded by them with alarm and suspicion^ which 
 Viennese and Magyar intrigue did everything to inflame. 
 The false policy of Sonnino and his group galvanised 
 Austria-Hungary into fresh life, and has cost the lives of 
 many thousands on both sides of the black-and-yellow 
 frontier. Nothing can better illustrate the unnatural 
 situation thus produced than the fact that while Austria- 
 Hungary was employing every measure of repression and 
 persecution against the Jugoslavs at home, and while thou- 
 sands of their volunteers were fighting heroically in the 
 ranks of the Serbian Army in Macedonia and the Dobrudja, 
 other Slav regiments stubbornly defended the Carso against 
 Italy in the belief that they were saving their national 
 territory from foreign imperialistic designs. The absurdity 
 of denouncing as Austrophil this action of a race of 
 Austrophobes is at last becoming clear even to the most 
 wilfully blind : for the Serbs of the kingdom are absolutely 
 solid with their kinsmen of Croatia and Slovenia in resisting 
 Italian aggression. An ominous proof of this is provided 
 by the intimation addressed on 15th November by the 
 Voivode Misic in the name of the Serbian Army and of the 
 Zagreb National Council to the Italians marching upon 
 Ljubljana, warning them that any attempt to occupy the 
 Slovene capital will be resisted by force of arms. 
 " From 1915 to 1917 Italy reaped the fruit of her short- 
 sighted policy, but nothing occurred to shake the attach- 
 ment of the leading Entente statesmen to the old diplomatic 
 methods. But the situation was completely transformed 
 by the Russian Revolution and the entry of America into 
 the war. For, on the one hand, the young Russian Demo- 
 cracy, as yet free from Bolsevist infection, repudiated 
 
ITALY AND JUGOSLAVIA 303 
 
 the secret methods of Tsardom and inscribed the watch- 
 word of Self-Determination upon its banners ; while, on 
 the other hand, America was entirely free from any Euro- 
 pean engagements and had not the slightest intention of 
 entangling herself in diplomatic commitments savouring 
 of the Congresses of Vienna and BerUn. The contrast 
 between the pubUc professions of the Entente statesmen 
 and their cryptic agreements behind the scenes became 
 more and more glaring. The doctrine of Self-Determina- 
 tion, though certainly surrounded by a good deal of loose 
 thinking and vague talk, held the field as a general principle, 
 and may be said to have been adopted by the Allied 
 democracies as their common programme for a world- 
 settlement. 
 
 In such circumstances it became more and more obvious 
 that, imless professions and practice could be squared, 
 eventual disaster was inevitable. As official circles in the 
 three Western countries showed a complete inability to 
 grasp this situation or to find a new and sounder basis of 
 policy, a number of private individuals in Italy, France, 
 and Britain set 'themselves to create a favourable atmo- 
 sphere in the press and public opinion for the new ideas. 
 In particular an attempt was made to bring together the 
 more progressive political leaders of Italy and the exiled 
 Jugoslav representatives — it being recognised that an 
 understanding . between Itahans and Jugoslavs was an 
 essential condition to a sound collective Entente policy 
 towards Austria, and therefore towards the whole problem 
 of racial and political reconstruction in Southern Europe. 
 After a number of prehminary meetings and discussions, 
 an agreement was reached last March between Signor Torre, 
 representing a large proportion of Italian senators and 
 deputies, and Dr. Trumbic, the President of the Jugoslav 
 
304 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Committee and co-signatory with Mr. Pasic of the Declara- 
 tion of Corfu of July 1917.1 
 
 The Torre-Trumbic agreement formed the basis of the 
 Congress of Oppressed Austrian Nationalities which met 
 in April in the Roman Capitol, and inaugurated the poli- 
 tical campaign of last summer which contributed so materi- 
 ally towards sapping the final resistance of the Dual Mon- 
 archy. The public endorsement of the agreement by the 
 Italian Premier, Signer Orlando, was generally regarded 
 as an acceptance of the principle of revision of the London 
 Convention ; - and it is an open secret that nowhere was 
 the satisfaction at this changed policy more profound than 
 in official American circles. Mr. Lansing, in his pronounce- 
 ments in favour of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, is 
 understood to have taken as his basis the Torre-Trumbic 
 resolutions, as publicly endorsed by the Rome Congress. 
 If one thing is certain at the impending Peace Conference, 
 it is that America will decline to ratify or to be bound by 
 the secret treaty of London, and will express herself in 
 favour of an arrangement following as nearly as possible 
 the lines of ethnographic cleavage and resting upon those 
 principles of mutual respect and friendly give-and-take 
 which are embodied in the Torre-Trumbic resolutions. 
 
 Unhappily, during the last six months Baron Sonnino has 
 deliberately thrown away the " moral primacy " which 
 Italy had assumed in the Capitol as regards the Austrian 
 nationalities ;. and in his renewed efforts to hold France 
 and Britain to the letter of their bond, and in his stubborn 
 opposition to the recognition of the new Jugoslav Govern- 
 
 1 There were three witnesses to their signature — ]VIr. Wickham 
 Steed, Signor Emanuel (of the Corriere delta Sera), and myself. Pro- 
 fessor Borgese and Sir Arthur Evans were also present on two 
 occasions during the negotiations. 
 
ITALY AND JUGOSLAVIA 305 
 
 ment, he appears to have had the backing of Signor 
 Orlando, who has weakly receded from his former position. 
 As we have already pointed out, the inclusion in the Austro- 
 Hungarian armistice of the territorial line conceded to 
 Italy by the London Convention — a step which has abso- 
 lutely no military significance in view of the break-up of 
 Austria-Hungary into distinct national units — has not 
 unnaturally been regarded in all Slav circles as the affirma- 
 tion of Italy's extreme territorial claim. Nor can the Jugo- 
 slavs be blamed for fearing lest the acceptance of these 
 conditions by the other Alhes and by America and their 
 refusal to accede to the Zagreb Government's appeal for 
 recognition are to be construed as an endorsement of that 
 claim. The fact that the Itahans have not even rested 
 content with the line assigned to them by the Armistice, 
 but have pushed forward into territory to which they have 
 no conceivable claim, has greatly increased the danger of the 
 situation and has led the Zagreb Government to lodge a 
 formal appeal with the Entente, demanding that Italian 
 troops shall be replaced by British, French, and American 
 troops on Jugoslav territory, lest Italy should attempt by 
 occupation to create some kind of title of possession. The 
 history of the Greek Dodecanese has not been forgotten. 
 
 The Italians, on the other hand, have filled the columns 
 of their daily press with moving accounts of the welcome 
 received by their forces on the other side of the Adriatic 
 and lost few opportunities of inflaming public feeling 
 against the " Croats." They make a special grievance of 
 the acceptance by the Jugoslav Revolutionary Committees 
 of the Austro-Hungarian Fleet when it was handed over 
 to them by the Vienna Government in articulo mortis. But 
 they do not explain whether they would have had the 
 Jugoslav Committees refuse the Fleet, especially after it 
 
306 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 had been de facto in their hands for some days previously. 
 Nor has any Italian journal yet had the courage to tell its 
 readers that, but for the outrageous imprisonment and 
 detention in Italy of the Jugoslav and Czecho-Slovak emis- 
 saries from the Austro-Hungarian Fleet, who left Curzola in 
 a saiUng boat and landed in Italy on 4th October, the Allies 
 might have had full disposal of the Austro-Hungarian Fleet 
 three weeks before the Jugoslavs took possession of it. 
 These emissaries, led by well-known men, had dejB.nite in- 
 structions to communicate at once with Dr. Benes, the 
 Foreign Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Government, and 
 with Dr. Trumbic, the President of the Jugoslav Committee. 
 They were not allowed to communicate with them for three 
 weeks, although Dr. Benes passed several days at Rome 
 in the first half of October, while the emissaries, unknown 
 to him, were actually interned there. 
 
 These facts and many others of a like nature ought to 
 be known to the Italian public. They would help it to 
 form a true view of the past, to understand the present 
 position of the Italian Government in regard to its Allies, 
 and to urge it to adopt the only policy which can save it 
 from one of two regrettable alternatives — humiliation, or 
 an armed conflict with the Jugoslavs. The only way of 
 escape is for Italy to hark back to the principle of the Rome 
 Congress and to take the initiative in promoting a good 
 and just settlement with the people which, if not bound to 
 Italy by friendly alHance, can only be her enemy. It is 
 time for Italy to remember that she is a great liberal power, 
 and that any attempt to substitute herself for Austria in 
 deahng with the Adriatic and Balkan races can only bring 
 her into conflict with her own best traditions and deprive 
 her of the goodwill of all the other liberal powers of the 
 world. 
 
ITALY AND JUGOSLAVIA 307 
 
 Unless a new and sounder basis can be found, Britain 
 and France may at any moment be called upon to impose 
 by force of arms upon a recalcitrant population a solution 
 which runs counter to the fundamental principles in whose 
 name the Great War has been fought and won. Even to 
 the most obtuse and fiery of patriots it must be obvious 
 that President Wilson and the American nation will never 
 become a party to such action, and that to insist upon 
 the Treaty would be one of the surest means of render- 
 ing the whole project of a League of Nations stillborn. 
 Indeed, so obvious is this that many people are asking 
 themselves whether the exaggerated insistence on the 
 Treaty in certain quarters is not, after all, a mere pretext 
 to cover far other designs. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Pact of Eome remains the charter of all 
 who still uphold the cause of Italo-Jugoslav friendship ; 
 and it is safe to assert that it will also remain one of the 
 historic documents of the war. Its text runs as follows : 
 
 The representatives of the nationahties subjected, in whole 
 or in part, to the rule of Austria-Hmigary — the ItaHans, Poles, 
 Roumanians, Czechs, and Jugoslavs — join in affirming their 
 principles of common action as follows : 
 
 1. Each of these peoples proclaims its right to constitute its 
 own nationahty and State unity or to complete it and to attain 
 full poHtical and economic independence. 
 
 2. Each of these peoples recognises in the Austro-Hungarian 
 Monarchy the instrument of German domination and the funda- 
 mental obstacle to the reaUsation of its aspirations and rights. 
 
 3. The assembly recognises the necessity of a common struggle 
 against the common oppressors, in order that each people may 
 attain complete liberation and national unity within a free State 
 unit. 
 
 The representatives of the ItaUan people and of the Jugoslav 
 people in particular agree as follows : 
 
308 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 1. In the relations between the Itahan nation and the nation 
 of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes — known also under the name 
 of the Jugoslav nation — the representatives of the two peoples 
 recognise that the unity and independence of the Jugoslav nation 
 is a vital interest of Italy, just as the completion of Italian 
 national unity is a vital interest of the Jugoslav nation. And 
 therefore the representatives of the two peoples pledge themselves 
 to employ every effort in order that, during the war and at the 
 moment of the peace, these decisions {finalitd) of the two nations 
 may be completely attained. 
 
 2. They declare that the liberation of the Adriatic Sea and 
 its defence against every present and future enemy is a vital 
 interest of the two peoples. 
 
 3. They pledge themselves also, in the interest of good and 
 sincere relations between the two peoples in the future, to solve 
 amicably the various territorial controversies on the basis of the 
 principles of nationality and of the right of peoples to decide their 
 own fate, and in such a way as not to injure the vital interests 
 of the two nations, such as shall be defined at the moment of 
 peace. 
 
 4. To such racial groups {nuclei) of one people as it may be 
 found necessary to include within the frontiers of the other 
 there shall be recognised and guaranteed the right to their 
 language, culture, and moral and economic interests. 
 
 The Pact of Rome provides the framework of an agree- 
 ment. It only remains to consider what its execution 
 would involve in practice. 
 
 That each of the two nations should recognise the unity 
 and independence of both as a common interest is merely 
 a recognition of the principle of " live and let live " and of 
 that parity upon which true neighbourly relations always 
 depend. In effect, it is a public homage rendered by both 
 parties to the principles of Natfonality and Self-Determina- 
 tion and a renunciation of the imperialistic designs which 
 inspired the bankrupt diplomacy of a recent past. 
 
 The liberation and defence of the Adriatic must of 
 necessity be the foremost aim of, both Italians and Jugo- 
 
ITALY AND JUGOSLAVIA 309 
 
 slavs. Any tendency to regard it as the exclusive posses- 
 sion of one alone must be firmly resisted. Nature has 
 divided that sea between the two peoples, and ^ach has an 
 equal interest in preventing the political intrusion of others, 
 while assuring absolute freedom of commercial intercourse 
 to all comers. If Italian and Jugoslav should prove in- 
 capable of mapping out amicably their respective spheres 
 of influence in the Adriatic and according to each other a 
 maximum of reciprocity, then they are simply abdicating 
 in favour of the German tertius gaudens. Such folly will 
 injure not themselves alone, but also their friends of the 
 Entente, who regard an Italo-Jugoslav understanding as 
 one of the most essential elements of a new order in Europe. 
 It is obvious that the main difl&culty centres round the 
 question of the future frontier between Italy and Jugoslavia; 
 but this, too, is not insurmountable, if only goodwill be 
 shown on both sides and if the principles of the Pact of 
 Rome — Nationality and Self-determination — be applied 
 with due regard to other " vital interests." An essential 
 preliminary to any compromise is a recognition of the utter 
 impossibility of finding a line which shall satisfy both races 
 and which shall leave no minorities on either side. Such 
 recognition should be followed by the admission that an 
 ethnographic frontier would none the less be the ideal, by 
 the undertaking to work for it in so far as geographical and 
 strategic reasons may permit, and by the solemn mutual 
 pledge of full linguistic rights in church, school, law court, 
 and communal administration, to all minorities on either 
 side of the new frontier. Any Government which refused 
 this would ipso facto place itself in the wrong. 
 
THE TRUE LINES OF AN ADRIATIC 
 
 SETTLEMENT ^ 
 
 The actual territory in dispute between the Italians and 
 Jugoslavs is situated in the former Austrian provinces of 
 Gorizia-Gradisca, Trieste, Carniola, Istria, and Dalmatia. 
 The total number of unredeemed Italians amounted, at the 
 census of 1910, to 768,422. From these the 385,700 Italians 
 of Tirol have to be subtracted, since their case is not even 
 open to discussion. The remaining 382,722 are distributed 
 as follows : 
 
 Italians. Jugoslavs. Total. 
 
 Gorizia-Gradisca 90,009 36 % 154,564 61 % 260,721 
 
 Trieste . . 118,959 62-3% 56,916 29*8% 229,510 
 
 Istria . . 147,417 38 % 223,318 57-7% 403,566 
 
 Dalmatia . . 18,028 2*8% 610,669 96 % 645,666 
 
 Let US state as briefly as possible the salient facts behind 
 these statistics : — (1) The right bank of the Kiver Isonzo 
 and a strip on the left bank as far as Monfalcone are purely 
 ItaHan. The town of Gorizia has an Italian majority 
 (roughly, 14,000 as against 11,000 Slovenes). In the 
 remainder of the province there is not even an Italian 
 minority. (2) The city of Trieste, in addition to 62 per 
 cent of its native population, has a permanent addition of 
 30-40,000 Italian immigrants from the Kingdom of Italy, 
 
 ^ From The New Europe, vol. ix. No. 116, January 2, 1919. 
 
 310 
 
A TRUE ADRIATIC SETTLEMENT 311 
 
 who accentuate still further its Itahan character. Yet even 
 inside the bounds of the municipality there is a strong Slav 
 minority of between 25 and 30 per cent, progressive, well 
 educated, and highly organised ; and the moment the 
 suburbs are left the traveller finds himself in purely Slovene 
 territory. (3) In Istria the races are more mixed ; but it 
 is none the less possible to identify two zones — the Western 
 predominantly Itahan (129,903 Italians, as against 58,373 
 Croats and Slovenes) and the Eastern, which is almost 
 exclusively Slav (135,290 Croats and Slovenes as against 
 6686 Italians). In other words, the Italians predominate 
 in the western coast towns, Pola, Capodistria, Rovigno, 
 etc., whereas the rural districts of the interior are incontest- 
 ably Slav. (4) In Dalmatia the Italians are a negligible 
 minority of less than 3 per cent in a purely Serbo-Croat 
 population ; and even this minority is confined to half-a- 
 dozen towns along the coast, of which Zara alone accounts 
 for one-third. In aU the Dalmatian islands together the 
 total number of Itahans does not run into four figures. 
 (5) There remains the town of Fiume, where there are 24,212 
 Italians and 15,687 Slavs. If, however, the important 
 suburb of Susak be included (and the two are every bit 
 as inseparable as Edinburgh and Leith), the population 
 consists of 24,870 Itahans and 27,393 Slavs (with about 
 10,000 Magyars, Germans, etc.), while the whole surround- 
 ing country is purely Croat. 
 
 There is a not unnatural tendency on both sides to insist 
 upon ihe inclusion of the entire race within the national 
 territory, and to overlook the consequences which this 
 would involve for its neighbour. On this basis no human 
 ingenuity can solve the problem ; for the Itahans, in order 
 to satisfy the demands of every Italian minority along the 
 coast, would be obliged to annex territory containing at 
 
312 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 least 700,000 Slavs, while the Jugoslavs, in order to unite 
 all their kinsmen to the new State, would have to annex 
 not less than 350,000 Italian Irredenti, and, in addition, a 
 corner of the Kingdom of Italy, containing 30,000 Slav- 
 speaking Friulians. We have never hesitated to insist, 
 with our Slav friends, that the latter claim (which, in its 
 extreme form, has never been seriously put forward) w^ould 
 be at once monstrous and inadmissible ; but for that very 
 reason we are entitled to expect that our Italian, friends 
 should not put forward equally inadmissible claims in the 
 opposite direction. If the Itahans for the sake of a minority 
 of 3 per cent (even the most daring controversialists do not 
 claim more than 10 per cent) are entitled to annex Slav 
 Dalmatia, obviously the Jugoslavs would, on the same 
 basis, be entitled to annex Itahan Trieste for the sake of a 
 minority of 30 per cent. In reality, neither argument is 
 valid ; but, unhappily, the extreme Italian claim (with the 
 single modification of Fiume) has acquired the sanction of 
 the Secret Treaty. 
 
 The essence of the problem is to leave as few minorities 
 as possible on the wrong side of the final line and to strike 
 an average between ethnography and geography. Historic 
 rights will not bring us far towards a solution, for while 
 Dalmatia might conceivably be claimed in the name of her 
 Venetian conquerors — hardly a title which the League of 
 Nations is likely to accept — it would then be necessary to 
 renounce Trieste, which voluntarily placed itself under the 
 protection of the Habsburgs* in 1382 and has ever since 
 owed its entire prosperity to the connection with its hinter- 
 land to the north. It is neither on historical nor on 
 economic, but on moral and spiritual grounds that Trieste 
 must be assigned to Italy, as a centre of Itahan culture 
 and sentiment. But political union must immediately be 
 
Ca' 
 
 .'R'nxlna*^ \ J' 
 
 Klagenfi rt 
 
 Budapest^ 
 
 HUN (lA 
 
 H 
 
 ^o^i'/^^v^"^//, 
 
 ur.» 
 
 jorizi-i <6"L]ubl)T^i '"%„„, si,„„ 
 
 
 |Q: SzegecUjL Arad 
 mesvar^ 
 
 fl^ a t 
 
 Klausenburg 
 o (Cluj) 
 
 A R. 
 
 © Jassy 
 
 /(ai 
 
 ,s-"«.,^^.lk.'','"iH';'"-ji-s^ o/'^s y I V a n i/ a^-^KI. 
 
 :fedt^ 
 
 
 'Heciri'^nnsi 
 _ (Sibiu)^ 
 
 VGalatz\ 
 
 CO 
 CO 
 
 a; 
 
 ..,..••. Additional territory claimed 
 by Bulgaria 
 
 Emety Walker Ltd. sc. 
 
 To face p. 312. 
 
A TRUE ADRIATIC SETTLEMENT 313 
 
 followed by the proclamation of Trieste as a free inter- 
 national port under the Italian flag. Any attempt to make 
 its trade subject to the tariff system of Italy would mean 
 not only disaster for the great commercial interests of the 
 city itself, but infinite trouble with the landlocked states 
 which depend upon it as their commercial outlet. One 
 of the most important innovations which the League of 
 Nations is likely to introduce into the European system is 
 some kind of international regulation or control of certain 
 main railways and waterways and the ports to which they 
 give access ; and in this Trieste and Fiume will play a part 
 only inferior to Constantinople itself. " And here it is 
 well to point out that the party which favours exaggerated 
 strategic claims will also be the party which opposes a 
 liberal poUcy in Trieste ; for, as a free commercial port, 
 open to every nation, the town will not require any elaborate 
 land defences, whereas, as the commercial preserve of a 
 State upon which it can never, geographically or economic- 
 aDy, depend, it will require a wide hinterland and ceaseless 
 military expenditure on a large scale." ^ 
 
 Meanwhile the true problem with regard to Trieste and 
 its hinterland — Venezia Giulia, to quote the somewhat 
 misleading name by which it is often called — is '' not 
 whether ItaHans shall destroy the Slavs, or Slavs eject 
 Itahans, but whether Italians and Slavs will succeed in 
 uniting to keep the Germans away from the Adriatic, or 
 whether the Germans will profit by the quarrels of the two 
 races in order to reduce both to subjection." The German 
 designs upon Trieste have, for more than a generation past, 
 formed an integral part of the Drang nach Osten, and it has 
 always been part of their tactics to foment the quarrel 
 
 1 Seton-Watson, " The Balltans, Italy, and the Adriatic," p. 58 
 (1915). 
 
314 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 between Italian and Slav. To-day it is the duty of those 
 who are the friends of both to prevent these tares from 
 being sown. The growth of German commercial influence 
 at Trieste has been very marked in recent years, and in 
 1910 the number of German- residents in the city had 
 reached 11,800. Vienna has always been the pliant tool 
 of this penetration, and the poHcy of the Austrian Lloyd 
 and of the Tauern Railway (connecting Trieste directly 
 with South Germany by a remarkable engineering feat) 
 showed to all but the wilfully blind that Vienna was really 
 acting for Berhn and Munich. But to-day again it is only 
 the wilfuUy bhnd who can pretend to argue that the Jugo- 
 slavs, and, above all, the Slovenes, can be anything but 
 anti-German, or can ever consent to a German penetration 
 of Trieste, unless indeed Italian appetites reduce them to 
 the position of the starving beggar who can only think of 
 his next meal. As Professor Salvemini has pointed out, 
 " The Germans would have to ask for a free path towards 
 Trieste, that is, the sacrifice to German pohtical interests, 
 not only of Italian Trieste, but of the whole Slovene hinter- 
 land. In other words, the basis of a German-Jugoslav 
 alliance would have to be the amputation of the Southern 
 Slav national State." In one contingency only would such 
 an accord be theoretically conceivable — namely, if the 
 Italians should insist upon a stiU greater amputation ; and 
 it is this which far-sighted Entente statesmen must keep in 
 mind. 
 
 With regard to Gorizia there is general agreement that 
 Italy must receive not only the right bank of the Isonzo, 
 but also enough of the left bank to provide a satisfactory 
 and tenable frontier Hue, and, in particular, the town of 
 Gorizia itself (which has unhappily suffered more than any 
 other in those regions from the ravages of war). Here the 
 
A TRUE ADRIATIC SETTLEMENT 315 
 
 natural preliminary to an agreement is the admission that 
 it is unnecessary to adhere to the exact boundaries of the 
 province of Gorizia-Gradisca, and indeed that the interests 
 of the two are by no means identical, for a number of 
 reasons quite unconnected with ethnography. If, however, 
 we start from the standpoint that for the Italians the 
 Trentino stands altogether outside discussion, and that no 
 compromise is possible in the case of Gorizia and Trieste, 
 we shall arrive, on close examination of the facts, at the 
 conclusion that Istria — as is only natural, in view of its 
 intermediary situation — blends itself to detaUed discussion, 
 whereas the Jugoslavs, in their turn, cannot accept any 
 compromise on the subject of Dalmatia and Fiume. 
 
 In the case of Istria, both sides must once more accept 
 as a preliminary axiom that an exact ethnographic frontier 
 is unobtainable, and that there must be sacrifices on both 
 sides. But it so happens that Italy's frontier in Roman 
 times, running from the Arsa estuary northwards through 
 the interior of the little peninsula, corresponds approxi- 
 mately with the Hne of partition between Latin and Slav, 
 and may fairly be taken as a rough basis for discussion by 
 the special international Commission which will doubtless 
 have to make the final decision. It is clear that the western 
 portion of the peninsula must be assigned to Italy, but that 
 Jugoslavia is fnlly entitled to claim the inland districts, 
 where the Slavonic population never falls below 90 per 
 cent. Of the islands, Lussin alone has an ItaUan majority 
 (7588 Italians to 4380 Croats) ; Cherso, of which the total 
 population only amounts to 8000, contains a Slavonic 
 majority of 3 to 1 ; while Veglia (Krk) is overwhelmingly 
 Slav (l9,562 to 1544 Italians). Here ethnography and 
 strategy need not clash ; for Lussin is a necessary protec- 
 tion to Pola and its approaches, and would therefore 
 
316 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 naturally fall to Italy, while the two more easterly islands 
 are equally necessary for the protection of Fiume, and 
 should share the fate of the Croatian mainland. 
 
 The problem of Fiume is, above all, economic. Fiume 
 and Susak are inseparable from each other, and have neither 
 life nor meaning if artificially separated from the surround- 
 ing district, which is purely Croat. In order to include the 
 25,000 Italians of Fiume, Italy would be obliged to annex 
 at least 100,000 Slavs, in addition to those whom she will 
 inevitably acquire in Western Istria and behind Trieste. 
 The right of Self-Determination must not be taken to mean 
 that every town or village is free to detach itself from its 
 neighbour, and Fiume less than most towns can be removed 
 from its setting. It owes not merely its importance, like 
 Trieste, but almost its very existence, to the commercial 
 requirements and ever-growing demands of a wide hinter- 
 land during the past century and a half. Its severance 
 from Jugoslavia would not only be an injury in which the 
 new State could never tamely acquiesce, but would spell 
 utter ruin for Fiume itself, since the Croats, if deprived of 
 their chief port, would have no course save to divert the 
 railway traffic to Buccari, where they could not be inter- 
 fered with. It is quite true that in five or ten years the 
 whole problem may have been transformed, and that when 
 the railways of Jugoslavia have been completed, Spalato 
 will become her chief commercial outlet. But as matters 
 stand to-day, Fiume is the only Jugoslav port which has a 
 broad-gauge railway connection with the interior, and must 
 therefore, for a long time to come, be the chief harbour of 
 Serbia and Croatia alike. Indeed, even if the trade of 
 Belgrade is eventually diverted farther to the south, Fiume 
 will always remain the chief Adriatic outlet of Zagreb, 
 Budapest, Central and Southern Hungary, and even of 
 
A TRUE ADRIATIC SETTLEMENT 317 
 
 Bohemia. There are of course certain business and financial 
 interests, which would like to secure for Trieste a monopoly 
 at Fiume's expense, and seek to attain their end by goading 
 the Irredentists of the latter city into a course which 
 would spell their complete ruin. But such intrigues are 
 foredoomed to failure, and common sense makes it clear 
 thatFiume must form part of Jugoslavia, though preserving 
 its special autonomous charter and proclaimed as a free 
 port under the guarantee of the League of Nations. 
 
 Itahan claims to Dalmatia fall -into four categories : 
 ethnographic, historical, cultural, and geographical- or 
 strategic, (1) The figures already quoted show the ethno- 
 graphic claim to be utterly untenable, Dalmatia being 
 inhabited, even on the showing of the Slavophobes, by 
 an overwhelmingly Slavonic population. (2) The historic 
 argument is of very Httle value, quite apart from the fact 
 that its appHcation would deprive Italy of Trieste. If 
 Dalmatia is to be claimed as a Roman province, then Gaul, 
 Britain, Spain and much else might be demanded with 
 equal reason. If Italy claims the heritage of Venice, she 
 wiU not rest content with Dalmatia, but will have to annex 
 most of the Albanian and Greek coast towns, to say nothing 
 ^f many other points in the Levant and along the Black 
 Sea. But of course in reality Venice, great as she was, was 
 never the promoter of Italianita on those coasts, still less 
 the forerunner of modern Italian nationalism ; and her 
 conquest of Dalmatia was inspired by colonial and mercan- 
 tile motives of the narrow kind then prevalent throughout 
 Europe. Her supreme aim was to exclude all save herself 
 from the navigation of the Adriatic, and even within its 
 waters tp prevent, at all costs, the commercial development 
 of other Adriatic cities. The Dalmatian poHcy of Venice 
 deserves to be consigned to a kindly oblivion, not to form 
 
318 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the basis 6f any new title of possession. Indeed, it might, 
 fairly be argued that the heirs of Venice owe a special debt 
 of moderation to the province which she exploited so merci- 
 lessly in the past. 
 
 (3) Abandoning history and race, the controversialists 
 contend that Dalmatia's whole cultural tradition is Italian, 
 and that in the life of the province the Italian minorities 
 fill a place so altogether disproportionate to their numbers 
 as to entitle them to a decisive voice as to its fate. While, 
 however, no one questions the deep influence which Italian 
 culture has always exercised and may still exercise in 
 Dahnatia, it is necessary to point out (what the casual 
 inquirer is too apt to overlook) that side by side with the 
 Italian, Dalmatia can boast of a distinctive Slavonic 
 culture of her own. Dalmatia is the home of the Glagolitic 
 rite, which has been sung in many churches since the ninth 
 century. Its churches and artistic treasures are above all 
 a blend of Byzantine and Venetian influences, but they are 
 mainly the work of native Slav artists, who have added 
 their own peculiar flavour. The Dalmatian Croats have 
 produced a rich crop of popular ballads, which an Itahan 
 priest was the first to introduce to the West ; and early in 
 the seventeenth century they already possessed a brilliant 
 galaxy of poets in the Ragusan Republic and in Spalato. 
 During the present century many of the leading Serbo- 
 Croat poets, historians, and artists belong to Dalmatia, and 
 though Austria had shockingly neglected the schools of the 
 hinterland, the coast towns have a network of educational 
 and intellectual institutions which have long since out- 
 distanced the scanty fragments which the Italians have to 
 show . 
 
 (4) Some extremists assert that the natural frontier of 
 Italy to the east is not the Adriatic Sea, but the high 
 
A TRUE ADRIATIC SETTLEMENT 319 
 
 mountain range which screens the Croatian and Dalmatian 
 coast-line from its hinterland from Liburnia as far south as 
 the Narenta. This is so patent an absurdity that it is 
 perhaps superfluous to point out that all the most serious 
 Italian writers from Dante downwards have always treated 
 the Quarnero, either at the Arsa or Monte Maggiore, as the 
 natural boundary. 
 
 There remains the strategic argument, which alone has 
 any serious foundation. In making war Italy was inspired 
 not only by the ardent desire to complete her national 
 unity, but by a motive equally powerful and equally 
 legitimate — ^the desire for a safe strategic frontier in the 
 Alps, and for real security in the Adriatic. In its own very 
 inadequate way, the Treaty of London sought to attain this 
 end ; unfortunately it reUed upon the methods of the 
 Metternichian era for its realisation, and thus started from 
 the radically false assumption that Austria-Hungary would 
 survive an Allied victory. But even from the purely 
 strategic standpoint the whole basis of the Treaty was 
 essentially unsound, since nothing short of the complete 
 annexation of the whole Eastern coast, from Trieste to 
 Cattaro, could really avert the naval dangers which a lively 
 imagination had conjured up, and in the moment when the 
 naval problem seemed solved, Italy would automatically 
 be confronted with the new and stiU deadlier military 
 problem of defending a frontier of 300 miles. Since, 
 however, even the Treaty only assigns certain portions of 
 the coast to Italy, the result would be to saddle her with 
 an equal share of naval and military disadvantages, but to 
 rid her completely of neither. 
 
 u To-day naval power depends far less upon naval bases 
 than upon the units of a fleet Britain bore down Germany 
 on sea, though the latter had armed to the teeth the base of 
 
320 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Heligoland. All the naval bases of Asia Minor and the 
 Adriatic did not avail the Central Powers against our 
 Mediterranean forces. Pol a has proved to be of relatively 
 little value owing to the superiority of the Italian, or at 
 least the Allied, fleets ; and it is obvious that in any further 
 conflict Italy, who succeeded in outdistancing in naval 
 armaments Austria-Hungary, with her 52,000,000 inhabit- 
 ants, will always maintain a sufficient superiority over 
 a small state Uke Jugoslavia to establish a blockade of 
 the latter 's ports. The submarine problem has upset all 
 previous values in naval warfare, and the submarine and 
 aerial developments of the next decade are certain to reduce 
 still further the importance of naval bases, hitherto regarded 
 as impregnable and decisive, and may lead to the distribu- 
 tion of war material over a far wider area. 
 
 The cession under the Secret Treaty of the two groups 
 of Dalmatian islands, and even of a large section of the 
 mainland to Italy was intelligible so long as there existed 
 the deliberate intention to prevent the union of Croatia and 
 Serbia. But now that this is an accompUshed fact, these 
 territorial clauses are not merely anachronous, but well- 
 nigh incapable of execution, for their effect would be to 
 cut the Jugoslav coast into three separate fragments, and 
 thus to establish a galling control over the whole seagoing 
 commerce of the new state, and even upon the ordinary 
 communications between one town and another. If the 
 Treaty were executed, a native of Fiume could not visit 
 Spalato, nor a native of Spalato Ragusa, without passing 
 through foreign territory, and every time that he did so he 
 would have before his eyes the unredeemed homes of his 
 kinsmen in the Northern archipelago, or in Lesina and 
 Curzola. The disastrous effects upon the coast trade, and 
 on those fishing and wine industries by which so many 
 
A TKUE ADEIATIC SETTLEMENT 321 
 
 Dalmatians keep body and soul together, may easily be 
 imagined. Dalmatia has already suffered sufficiently under 
 Austria from a policy of economic isolation ; but all such 
 miseries would be accentuated tenfold if Zara and its 
 district were to be severed even from such poor hinterland 
 as it possesses. Zara, it is already being argued in some 
 Italian quarters, is a backwater with no economic future, 
 and may therefore be assigned the role of a national 
 museum ! This, however, is a standpoint which is scarcely 
 likely to appeal even to the most enthusiastic Itahan that 
 ever lived in Zara, It is, of course, obvious that the Jugo- 
 slavs, if deprived of their natural birthright in Northern 
 Dalmatia, would treat it as dead flesh, cut ofi from all 
 connection with the main body, and would set themselves 
 to develop Spalato, Metkovic, and Gravosa against Zara and 
 Sebenico, just as they would develop Buccari at the expense 
 of Fiume if the latter were assigned to Italy. In such a 
 deplorable event the railway connecting Spalato with Knin 
 (and so eventually with the outer world through Ogulin and 
 Banjaluka) has been made under the Secret Treaty to run 
 for a short distance through Italian territory, and this 
 would at once become the source of further acute friction. 
 
 Such provisions merely challenge opposition. Dalmatia 
 belongs to the Slavs, and Italy could only hold it at the 
 sword's point and at the price of Jugoslavia's lasting 
 enmity. But the demands put forward by many Italians 
 that a special autonomous position should be accorded to 
 the municipality of Zara within the new state, and that 
 special facilities for instruction in Italian should be accorded 
 in all the coast towns (in addition to the ordinary Hnguistic 
 rights of "minorities) are eminently reasonable, and are 
 almost certain to have the support of the Peace Conference. 
 
 In addition to this, if Italy is not satisfied with naval 
 
 y 
 
322 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 superiority, she can still further strengtlien her position by- 
 occupying the ^Ye principal keys of the Adriatic—Trieste 
 and Pola, Lussinpiccolo (which covers the back of Pola and 
 commands the entrance to the Quarnero and to the port of 
 Fiume, and which at the same time happens to be the only 
 island in which the Italian element is not entirely negligible), 
 Lissa (which is, in a certain sense, the Adriatic Heligoland 
 and would be invaluable as a check to aggression from the 
 Eastern coast), and Valona, which commands the Straits 
 of Otranto. " All this can be secured to Italy without any 
 very serious violation of the principle of nationahty." ^ 
 It is, however, obvious that the cession of Lissa to Italy, 
 though only involving the loss of a few thousand inhabit- 
 ants, would be keenly resented from the sentimental Jugo- 
 slav point of view, and would serve as a perpetual irritant 
 between the two peoples. The best that could be said of 
 it is that it would be better than a fresh war, the worst, 
 that it might act as the incentive to one. 
 
 But when all has been said, Italy's security in the 
 Adriatic must always depend upon two paramount 
 considerations — the maintenance on the one hand of 
 amicable relations with the population of the Eastern 
 coast, and on the other of her own naval superiority. 
 What greater national or strategic gain to Italy can possibly 
 be imagined than what her alliance with the maritime 
 powers of Europe and America has already brought her in 
 the present war ? Not merely has Austria-Hungary dis- 
 appeared as a Great Power, it has actually ceased to exist., 
 and the Germans have ceased to be a directing force in the 
 Adriatic. Italy no longer finds as her neighbour a state 
 of 52,000,000 inhabitants closely allied with the greatest 
 mihtary power of modern times, but a state of 11,000,000 
 
 ^ Seton-Watson, op. cit. p. 72. 
 
A TRUE ADEIATIC SETTLEMENT 323 
 
 exhausted and decimated by war, disease, and famine, and 
 confronted by immense problems of internal organisation. 
 Above all, the Aiistro-Hungarian fleet has ceased to exist, 
 and Italy, with the consent of her Allies, is in a position to 
 prevent it from eVer being replaced. That loyal champion 
 of Italo-Slav friendship, Professor Salvemini, wrote when 
 Italy was still neutral : " We cannot prevent Austria from 
 having a fleet, because she already possesses one. But the 
 Serbia of to-morrow we must prevent from having one, 
 both in her own interest and in ours ; and we can take 
 advantage of this moment, which wiU never recur in history, 
 in order to exclude from the Adriatic Austria, which has a 
 fleet, and to substitute for her a new state which has no 
 fleet, and which we can prevent from creating one." 
 
 To-day no one could blame Italy for insisting upon this 
 standpoint, since a Jugoslav fleet could only be directed 
 against Italy. The Jugoslavs, on the other hand, while 
 they cannot be expected to regard with equanimity a 
 greatly augmented Italian fleet, which, so far as the 
 Adriatic is concerned, could only be used against them, 
 must realise that they can never seriously hope to compete 
 in naval armaments with a country so greatly superior 
 to their own in men and resources. Moreover, they will 
 have no spare capital to invest in fleets and arsenals, and 
 if once an honourable basis of settlement with Italy can 
 be found, they will not only have no inducement to build 
 a fleet, but every inducement to save themselves the 
 heavy expenditure and commitments' which it would 
 
 involve. 
 
 Fortunately it is quite possible to find such a basis 
 of settlement, equally honourable to both parties, and 
 calculated to reduce enormously the relative importance 
 of strategic questions. Just as the problem of the Adriatic 
 
324 EUKOPE IN THE MELTIN.G-POT 
 
 and of Italo-Jugoslav relations is a test case of nationality 
 in the whole European settlement, so it may be taken as a 
 test case for the League of Nations. The neutralisation of 
 the whole Eastern coast of the Adriatic, from Trieste to 
 the Bojana, if carried out under the guarantee of the 
 League of Nations, would reheve Italy of all anxieties of a 
 strategic nature while not imposing upon Jugoslavia any 
 restriction which a free and high-spirited nation could not 
 cheerfully accept. Indeed, there is little doubt that Jugo- 
 slavia, being thus saved the necessity for a naval budget, 
 would very soon be an object of envy, at any rate among 
 the smaller powers, and that the precedents thus created 
 might be followed in many unexpected quarters. There is 
 good reason to believe that the Jugoslavs themselves would 
 be prepared to accept a solution which is so thoroughly in 
 accordance with the principles of President Wilson, and 
 if the proposal should be seriously put forward in the 
 immediate future it may presumably count upon his and 
 the Allies' enthusiastic support. 
 
 As a result, the Adriatic would present the happy 
 spectacle of a sea in which naval arsenals and elaborate 
 fortifications had become superfluous, and in which 
 armed fleets could be replaced by a few gun-boats and 
 patrol-boats, accepting orders from the new international 
 (or " supranational ") authority. It is obvious that in such 
 circumstances the frontier dispute assumes an entirely 
 different aspect, and can be solved far more nearly upon an 
 ethnographic basis than would be possible if strategic con- 
 siderations still predominate. It is in this direction that 
 not only the advocates of Italo-Slav friendship, but also 
 all who have the cause of European reconstruction and inter- 
 national harmony at heart, must continue to work. The 
 true mind of Italy had already rallied to this programme, 
 
A TEUE ADRIATIC SETTLEMENT 325 
 
 when last April many of its political leaders ratified the 
 Torre-Trombic Agreement and acclaimed it as the Pact 
 of Rome ; and despite the regrettable set-backs of opinion 
 during the past few months, we still cling to the belief that 
 the Pact of Rome may even at this late hour form the 
 necessary basis of an accord which the interests of Italy 
 so urgently demand. The yelps of a tiny band of Press 
 jackals cannot permanently prevent the good sense of the 
 Italian people from asserting itself, and from reahsing the 
 common interests which should unite them with their 
 Jugoslav neighbours. 
 
THE ROUMANIANS OF HUNGAEY^ 
 
 The history of Transylvania is, in many ways, unique 
 in Europe. After forming the backbone of the ancient 
 Dacia, it was fought over for centuries by tribe after tribe 
 of barbarian invaders moving westwards. It was not till 
 the end of the eleventh century that the Magyars extended 
 their sway to what came to be called Erdely, Ardeal, 
 Transylvania — " The land beyond the forest." Their 
 kings, finding the country thinly populated after the rav- 
 ages of centuries, encouraged Magyar and German settlers 
 by the grant of special charters and concessions. The 
 Transylvanian constitution crystallised round the so-called 
 " Brotherly Union " of 1437, concluded between the three 
 privileged " nations," the Magyar nobles, the Szekelys or 
 Frontiersmen of the eastern Carpathians, and the Saxon 
 townsmen. When Hungary was conquered by the Turks 
 in 1525, the principality of Transylvania survived under 
 native Magyar princes, paying periodical tribute to the 
 Turks. Parallel with the Turks from the South came the 
 Eeformation from the German North, and Transylvania 
 became the scene of a remarkable experiment of religious 
 toleration at the very moment when the wars of religion 
 were at their height in the West. In 1571 the Estates re- 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. i. No. 1, October 19, 1916. 
 
 326 
 
THE ROUMANIANS OF HUNGARY 327 
 
 cognised the four confessions — Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, 
 and Unitarian — as equal before the law. 
 
 Unhappily, in this seemingly ideal picture, there was 
 one significant omission. Side by side with the three domi- 
 nant races there was the silent mass of serfs, the Roumanian 
 autochthonous population, who, in spite of their superior 
 numbers, have never obtained recognition as a nation, and 
 whose reUgion — the Orthodox or Eastern Faith — was ex- 
 cluded from the benefits of religious toleration. Alike 
 during the period of Transylvanian independence (1526- 
 1691) and the succeeding period of autonomy under Habs- 
 burg rule, the Roumanians have always occupied the posi- 
 tion of real political helots, and have never lost an oppor- 
 tunity of asserting their claims of civil and religious equahty. 
 Just as in 1791 the memorable petition known as '^ Supplex 
 Libellus Valachorum " was completely ignored by the 
 Diet, so their great assembly on the " Field of Liberty " at 
 Blaj (Blasendorf), in 1848, was a signal to the dominant 
 race to ruish through the Diet a law proclaiming the union 
 of Transylvania with Hungary, in defiance of Roumanian 
 and Saxon opposition. The fatal attitude of the Magyars, 
 in refusing point blank to the Roumanians, as to the Slavs, 
 those national rights which they claimed for themselves, 
 ranged aU the other races on the side of Austria and the 
 Habsburgs in the terrible civil war which followed. Its 
 evil traces still survive in memories of peasants shot and 
 hanged wholesale without trial for their loyalty to the 
 throne, and castles sacked and burned in revenge for 
 centuries of oppression. When, after ten years of black 
 reaction, constitutional government was revived in Austria 
 in the early 'sixties, there was a brief interlude of honest 
 dealing, the Roumanian nation and language being at last 
 placed on an equal footing with the Magyar and the German, 
 
328 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and the Roumanian Orthodox Church receiving a definite 
 charter, under its own hierarchy and elective assembly. 
 This alarmed and angered the patriots of Budapest, and 
 among the foremost concessions extracted from the Crown, 
 as an earnest of the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich of 1867, 
 were the dissolution of the Transylvanian Diet, the conse- 
 quent annulment of its concessions to the Roumanians, 
 and the ratification of the forced union of 1848 by a new 
 Diet, which was specially " packed " for the purpose, and 
 which overrode the vigorous protests of both Roumanians * 
 and Saxons. 
 
 Since 1867, then, Transylvania has been merged in Hun- 
 gary, and the Roumanian population has shared in the 
 benefits conferred by a constitution which the Magyars are 
 never tired of comparing to the British. To the Rou- 
 manians, as to the Slavs of Hungary, the chief pledge of 
 pohtical Hberty has been the law of 1868 guaranteeing '' the 
 Equal Rights of all Nationalities." But this law, though 
 for years past it has been held up to the uninformed outside 
 world as a pattern of unexampled tolerance, has all the time, 
 as a result of the deliberate policy of the entire Magyar 
 ruling caste, remained a dead letter in the most literal 
 sense of the word. It would be easy to take the document, 
 paragraph by paragraph, and, by comparison with official 
 statistics and the admissions of leading statesmen, to prove 
 that, in all matters of administration, justice, education, 
 etc., its provisions have been deliberately disregarded in 
 favour of a ruthless policy of Magyarisation. For example, 
 there are no state schools, secondary or primary, where the 
 language of instruction is Roumanian, and though the Rou- 
 manians have been able to maintain their own denomina- 
 tional schools, this has been in addition to their liability 
 to the state, and by the almost unaided efforts of a very 
 
THE ROUMANIANS OF HUNGARY 329 
 
 poor community. The scandalous Education Laws intro- 
 duced in 1907 by that false prophet of constitutional liberty, 
 Count Apponyi, were designed above all to effect the forcible 
 Magyarisation of the denominational schools, the last 
 stronghold of the nationahties. The Magyar point of view 
 was. brought out very well some twelve years ago during 
 an education debate, when the well-known dramatist and 
 newspaper proprietor, Mr. Rakosi, declared that the proper 
 educational poUcy was to allow no teaching of any kind for 
 three years in any of the schools attended by non-Magyars, 
 except speaking, reciting, and singing Magyar ! He was 
 followed by Bishop Firczak, who said : "A good educa- 
 tional policy is in the interests of the state, but its first 
 requirement is that it should be Magyar in all its parts. 
 The second requirement is that it should have a moral and 
 religious basis." The order is absolutely significant and 
 characteristic. 
 
 It is, however, on the political side that the oppression 
 of the Roumanians has been most glaring. Thanks to the 
 great reputation and influence at Court of Archbishop 
 Shaguna, the Roumanian Orthodox Metropolitan, their 
 church autonomy was respected, and thus there was at 
 least one valuable point of defence against Magyar aggres- 
 sion. But even Shaguna felt himself politically helpless, 
 and after the Ausgleich coined the famous phrase, " Flere 
 possim, sed iuvare non " (I could weep, but help I 
 could not). His despairing followers committed the grave 
 mistake of adopting a policy of abstention, and for years 
 the Roumanians were unrepresented in the Hungarian 
 Parliament. 
 
 In 1881 the irreconcilables met under the historian 
 Baritiu, and founded the Roumanian National Party, 
 whose chief demands were the fulfilment of the law of 
 
330 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 nationalities, the restoration of Transylvanian autonomy, 
 and universal suffrage. They were attacked with the 
 utmost bitterness by the Magyars inside and outside Parlia- 
 ment, and, as press persecution grew, their committee 
 addressed a petition to the throne, recounting their griev- 
 ances in a masterly way (1892). The Hungarian Govern- 
 ment, in its fury, not only prevented Francis Joseph from 
 receiving them, but actually brought the whole committee 
 to trial for *' incitement against the Magyar nation " ; and 
 Dr. Ratziu and eight others were sentenced to a total of 
 twenty - nine years' imprisonment. The Memorandum 
 Trial awakened echoes throughout Europe, and especially 
 in Roumania. Its victims, in a spirited defence, rubbed in 
 the fact that it was not a question of law, but of mere brute 
 force, declared themselves to have acted as mandatories 
 of the Roumanian people, and denied that a whole people 
 can be brought to justice. " By your spirit of mediaeval 
 intolerance," they added, " by a racial fanaticism which 
 has not its equal in Europe, you will, if you condemn us, 
 simply succeed in proving to the world that the Magyars 
 are a discordant note in the concert of European nations." 
 The Hungarian Government did not stop here. A 
 month later it formally dissolved the Roumanian National 
 Party as a disloyal institution, and denied the right of the 
 Roumanians to form a party on national lines ; and though 
 events have rendered the literal enforcement of such a 
 policy impracticable, it still represents the views of all 
 representative Magyar statesmen. The present Premier, 
 Count Tisza, in a famous speech in 1910, argued that, " at 
 the moment when our Roumanian fellow-citizens form 
 parties on the basis of nationality, they are already denying 
 the poHtical unity of the Hungarian nation." " Indivi- 
 dual nationalities," said another Premier, the late Baron 
 
THE KOUMANIANS OF HUNGAKY 331 
 
 Banfiy, " have no rights, only individuals have." Of 
 course, not every one in Hungary is so crude or so frank as 
 a well-known Budapest newspaper which, in commenting 
 on the Memorandum Trial, expressed regret that the good 
 old practice of affixing the heads of traitors to the gates' 
 could not be employed against the prisoners. But language 
 scarcely less violent could be quoted ad iiauseam from 
 almost all the prominent piibhc men of Hungary for a 
 generation past. Count Andrassy, when Minister of the 
 Interior eight years ago, defined the policy of the state as 
 '' kindliness and justice to the masses of the nationalities, 
 but pitiless prosecution of the agitators who lead them " ; 
 and, next morning, a leading daily added the comment, 
 " We, the Magyar nation and Magyar society, are not 
 satisfied with so little. We wish to Magyarise Hungary 
 completely." In short, in the words of Coloman Szell, 
 one of the most moderate Premiers of modern Hungary, 
 and the favourite pupil of the great Deak, " The unitary 
 Magyar state is the highest aim of Hungarian policy, 
 and every statesman must be irreconcilable in pursuing it. 
 Hungary must first be preserved as a Magyar land, and then 
 it must be cultivated, rich, and progressive." 
 
 At the elections of 1906, the Roumanians, abandoning 
 the old policy of abstention, managed to secure fourteen 
 seats in Parliament, but this was only a momentary over- 
 sight on the part of the Magyars ; and in 1910 their number 
 was reduced to five, as the result of one of the most corrupt 
 and terroristic elections of modern times. It is difficult to 
 convey to Western readers an adequate impression of the 
 electoral methods employed in Hungary, especially in the 
 non- Magyar constituencies. Apart from an elaborate 
 system of gerrymandering, the absence of the ballot, and 
 the narrowness of the franchise, the whole machinery of 
 
332 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 state is set in motion to prevent the election of candidates 
 whom the Government regards as undesirable. Cases could 
 be cited where veterinary orders have been issued on the 
 eve of the poll, forbidding horse traffic in the constituency ; 
 or where the only bridge over a river has been suddenly 
 declared unsafe and closed for traffic ; or where station- 
 masters, by order, refuse to issue tickets to Roumanian 
 voters ; or where electors have simply been shut up in an 
 inn under lock and key till all was over ; or even where a 
 candidate has been arrested as a suspicious character, his 
 papers taken away, and he himself detained in gaol for two 
 days and not allowed to communicate with his friends. I 
 know of two instances in 1910 where a '' dummy " candidate 
 has been announced by the returning officer at the last 
 moment, bearing the same name as the opposition can- 
 didate, and where the scale has then been turned by credit- 
 ing votes for the latter to his imaginary namesake ! On 
 one occasion the chief administrative official of a large con- 
 stituency said to the opposition candidsCte, a non-Magyar 
 friend of my own, " Even if 90 per cent of the electors go 
 in your favour, you still won't be elected." Doubtful 
 constituencies are flooded with troops and gendarmes, who 
 are used to browbeat the peasantry, and, when necessary, 
 to isolate them from their leaders. In many cases a cordon 
 of troops is drawn round the town or village where polling 
 is taking place, and the opposition is kept waiting outside in 
 the wind and rain, or in the summer heat, while the Gov- 
 ernment party has the run of the town, and of the inns, with 
 free beer and wine and other inducements. Sometimes 
 such treatment goads the Roumanians to fury, and they 
 resist ; then the gendarmes fire only too freely, and more 
 than one blood bath has resulted. 
 
 In 1910 it was officially admitted by the Hungarian 
 
THE ROUMANIANS OF HUNGARY 333 
 
 Government that " only " 194 battalions of infantry and 
 114 squadrons of cavalry were employed at the June elec- 
 tions to '' preserve order " — ^in other words, to prevent the 
 non-Magyars, and even to some extent the Magyar opposi- 
 tion, from exercising their just political rights. Thanks to 
 the help of friends who knew every cellar and backdoor in 
 a certain Hungarian country town, I succeeded in getting 
 through a triple cordon of infantry, cavalry, and gendar- 
 merie, and witnessing with my own eyes such an election. 
 On that occasion it was only the action of the non-Magyar 
 candidate in withdrawing from the contest that averted 
 serious bloodshed. He had an overwhelming majority of 
 electors marshalled on the outskirts of the town, but the 
 cordon had strict orders not to admit them. The only 
 exception made was for the men of two particular villages, 
 and of them the returning officer made short work, either 
 disqualifying them altogether or crediting their votes to 
 the Government candidate, whose hopeless minority was 
 thus conveniently swelled into a triumphant majority. 
 
 For even when he has reached the poll, the elector's 
 dangers are not at an end. Magyar returning officers are 
 capable of transferring votes to the wrong side, losing the 
 papers, allowing Government agents to vote three or four 
 times over or to impersonate a dead man, and, indeed, dis- 
 qualifying on almost any trumped-up grounds. The law 
 of Hungary actually provides in detail for cases where the 
 returning officer declares a candidate elected who has not 
 received an absolute majority, or infringes the law " with 
 the object of falsifying the result" (I quote the exact 
 words). Such are only a few of the methods of a constitu- 
 tion which the Magyars are never tired of comparing with 
 the British. 
 
 Much could be written of the systematic prosecution of 
 
334 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the Roumanian Press ; of how, in twenty years, over 350 
 Roumanian " intellectuals " were sentenced to over 150 
 years of imprisonmnent and enormous fines for so-called 
 " incitement against the Hungarian nation " ; of how 
 public meetings are prohibited wholesale, Roumanian 
 societies dissolved, Roumanian school books and song 
 books proscribed, the Roumanian colours forbidden, Rou- 
 manian funds confiscated or arbitrarily diverted to other 
 uses, Roumanian boys expelled repeatedly and in growing 
 numbers from schools and seminaries, simply because they 
 refuse to submit to the ban upon their language. But 
 enough has already been said to prove that the political 
 system under which the Roumanians of Transylvania and 
 Hungary have hitherto lived is one of the grossest tyrannies 
 which modern Europe has ever known, and that it would 
 have justified Roumania a hundred times over in seeking 
 to set free a race whose deep and virile national conscious- 
 ness has survived all attacks. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE BANAT^ 
 
 Of all the new states which the war has brought into being, 
 none is confronted with so many delicate frontier problems 
 as Jugoslavia. At no less than seven points its frontiers 
 are disputed by neighbouring races — on the north by the 
 Germans and Magyars, on the west by the Italians, on the 
 south by the Albanians and Greeks, on the east by the 
 Roumanians and Bulgarians. With the dispute between 
 Jugoslavs and Italians we have already dealt at some 
 length. The less acute, but none the less delicate, dispute 
 between Jugoslavs and Eoumanians is now also ripe for 
 discussion, and we propose to give a brief survey of the 
 problem in its various aspects, ethnographic, geographical, 
 economic, and political. 
 
 The territory in dispute is known as the Banat of Temes- 
 var, and is bounded on three sides by rivers^ — the Maros to 
 the north, the Theiss to the west, and the Danube to the 
 south. The difficulty of tracing a just frontier here is still 
 more difficult and comphcated than in the districts north 
 of the Maros ; for the claimants are no longer two, but 
 three (Magyar, Roumanian, and Serb), and whichever of the 
 three is successful must pay due regard to the interests of 
 a fourth race — namely, the large and flourishing German 
 (or Swabian) colonies. Here the frontier question is merely 
 a part of the dehcate problem of the Banat, which since 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. x. No. V12, February 13, 1919. 
 
 335 
 
336 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 1916 has to some extent clouded tlie hitherto cordial 
 relations between Roumania and Serbia. ^ 
 
 The Banat is sometimes claimed as a unit which it 
 would be a crime against nature to divide. Such a claim 
 has no historical foundation and only a very inadequate 
 support from geography. Temesvar was the gxeat fortress 
 around which centred the defence of Hungary's southern 
 frontier, but for that very reason it always formed an in- 
 tegral part of the Hungarian state system, save, of course, 
 during the period of Turkish conquest. The grant of 
 special privileges by Leopold I. to the Serbian immigrants 
 aroused the indignant protests of the Hungarian Parlia- 
 ment, which never recognised their validity and insisted 
 first upon their curtailment and finally their complete 
 aboKtion. It is true that between 1849 and 1859 (during 
 the period of reaction known as the Bach Era) the Banat 
 was formed into a separate political unit ; but students of 
 history do not need to be reminded that the experiment 
 ended in disastrous failure, owing, above all, to the lack of 
 cohesion in that racial macedoine. 
 
 Meanwhile it does not require much knowledge of geo- 
 graphy to reahse that the Banat belongs to the Danubian 
 river system. It has natural communications with the 
 north, west, and south across the Maros, Theiss, and Danube, 
 whereas towards the east there are physical obstacles which 
 hamper intercourse. When the new states which have 
 arisen on the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy devote them- 
 selves to perfecting the lines of rail and water communi- 
 
 ^ Recent controversial summaries may be found in D. Drag- 
 hicesco, " Les Roumains " (Bossard) ; S. Bocou, *' La Question du 
 Banat " (Lalmre) ; G. Mironescu, "Le Probleme du Banat " (Leroux) ; 
 and Gregoire Yakshitch, " Le Banat " {Bev. HebdomadairCy 1915). 
 The standard work on the Serbs of the Banat is still that of Emile 
 Picot (Prague, 1875); Professor Cviji6's great work, "La P6ninsule 
 Balkanique " (CoHn, 1919) should also be consulted. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE BANAT 337 
 
 cation \\itliiii their own territory and with their neighbours, 
 it will be found that Roumania possesses only two easy 
 means of access to the West — namely, down the Maros 
 valley from Central Transylvania to Arad or Temesvar, and 
 up the Danube valley from Wallachia through the Iron 
 Gates. The fact that between these two lines there is no 
 obvious route from East to West is the best proof that, 
 geographically, the Banat belongs rather to Hungary or to" 
 Serbia than to Roumania. There are other arguments 
 which make it imperative to assign at least a large portion 
 of the Banat to Roumania ; but it is necessary at the out- 
 set to make it clear that the whole trend of geography is in 
 the other direction, and that it is only the modern de- 
 velopments of swift communication by water, rail, and road 
 that render it possible to overlook what would otherwise 
 be a grave defect in the Roumanian case. 
 
 There are many obvious reasons why in this question 
 ethnography must take precedence over both history and 
 geography, quite apart from the stress laid upon the prin- 
 ciple of nationality. The land is for the people, not the 
 people for the land or for the fortunate few who have laid 
 their exploiting hands upon it — be they dynasts, prelates, 
 or magnates. The statesman can afford as Uttle as the his- 
 torian to ignore the traditions of the past ; but both must 
 recognise that still more imperative are the needs of the 
 present, and that the populations most directly concerned 
 will, if means can be found to give free play to their wishes, 
 find a suitable compromise between sentiment and interest. 
 
 Ethnographically there is no district in all Europe where 
 the races are so inextricably mingled as in the Banat, and 
 it may be laid down as an axiom which no one can contest, 
 that, however the future frontiers may be drawn, min- 
 orities belonging to each of the four principal races will 
 
338 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 inevitably be left in each of the newly constituted states. 
 This fact is being used by the Magyar propagandists as an 
 argument in favour of leaving the Banat in the possession 
 of Hungary. Such a proposal could only be considered 
 seriously in the event of an absolute failure on the part of 
 Jugoslavs and Koumanians to reach an amicable agree- 
 ment as to the lines of partition. It is quite true that 
 'neither Serbs nor Roumanians possess an absolute rpaj ority ; 
 but as against the Magyars, who only occupy the fourth 
 place, they both unquestionably have a superior claim ; 
 while the possibility of a -German (Swabian) territorial 
 claim is ruled out by practical reasons of geography. The 
 Magyars can no longer even plead that most evil of argu- 
 ments, heati possidentes, and their rivals might well invoke 
 the past record of Hungary toward her non-Magyar nation- 
 alities as a proof that no change of masters could conceiv- 
 ably be for the worse. 
 
 Impossible though it may be to disentangle the puzzle 
 of the Banat, it is none the less possible to distinguish three 
 main zones — 
 
 (a) The county of Caras-Severin (Krasso-Szoreny), which 
 is predominantly Roumanian ; 
 
 (h) The county of Torontal, in which the Serb element 
 is the strongest. 
 
 (c) The county of Temes, in which the four principal 
 races are inextricably mixed. 
 
 Caras-Severin. — In a total population of 466,147 there 
 are 336,082 Roumanians (71 per cent), the only serious 
 minority consisting of 55,883 Germans, who will be under 
 alien rule, whatever may be the final solution. In the case 
 of the 33,787 Magyars, we must allow for the habitual 
 exaggeration of their number in the official statistics ; and 
 their ranks will be still further thinned by the withdrawal 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE BANAT 
 
 339 
 
 to what is left of Hungary of the very numerous Magyar 
 officials and their families. Finally the Serb minority only 
 amounts to 14,674, and cannot therefore weigh in^he balance 
 when the rival claimants are Roumania and Jugoslavia. 
 Unless, then, the Peace Conference proposes to leave the 
 whole Banat in the hands of Hungary, there would seem 
 to be an overwhelming case for excluding the county of 
 Caras-Severin from the discussions and assigning it im- 
 mediately to Roumania. 
 
 So far as the two western counties of the Banat are con- 
 cerned, it will be weU for the moment to consider the statis- 
 tical data as a single whole. 
 
 A. — Serbian 
 
 {Districts where the Serbo-Croat element is in a distinct majority 
 
 against the Roumanian.) 
 
 (1) Torontdl. 
 Panfievo (Pancsova) 
 Pandevo Town 
 KovaCica (Antal- 
 
 falva) 
 BeCkerek 
 Bedkerek Town 
 Modos . 
 Torok Becse . 
 Zsombolya . 
 Kakinda 
 Kikinda Town 
 
 Totals . 
 
 (2) T ernes County. 
 Bela Crkva ( Weiss - 
 
 kirchen) 
 Bela Crkva Town . 
 Kevevdra 
 
 Serbo- 
 Croat. Roumanian. 
 
 16,207 10,735 
 8,849 769 
 
 24,895 
 
 15,018 
 
 9,098 
 
 7,864 
 
 32,941 
 
 3,908 
 
 15,355 
 
 14,161 
 
 5,442 
 10,581 
 
 339 
 3,877 
 
 110 
 4,643 
 
 238 
 
 436 
 
 Magyar. 
 3,148 
 3,364 
 
 5,957 
 8,573 
 9,148 
 4,685 
 14,136 
 12,026 
 7,298 
 5,968 
 
 German. 
 
 15,573 
 
 7,467 
 
 1,849 
 16,485 
 6,811 
 9,905 
 1,054 
 25,552 
 9,875 
 5,855 
 
 Total. 
 
 47,877 
 
 20,808 
 
 47,044 
 54,715 
 26,006 
 27,048 
 48,464 
 46,904 
 33,009 
 26,795 
 
 148,206 37,170 74,303 100,426 378,670 
 
 20,993 8,234 909 
 
 2,013 1,806 1,213 
 
 16,826 5,705 5,355 
 
 4,791 36,831 
 6,062 11,524 
 6,587 35,482 
 
 Totals 
 
 39,832 15,745 7,477 17,440 83,837 
 
340 
 
 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Totals 
 
 B. — Debatable 
 
 County of Torontdl. 
 
 
 Serbo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Croat. 
 
 Roumanian. 
 
 Magyar. 
 
 German. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Alibunar 
 
 . 11,799 
 
 14,982 
 
 588 
 
 755 
 
 29,292 
 
 Banloc 
 
 4,581 
 
 6,637 
 
 6,385 
 
 . 8,403 
 
 27,667 
 
 Pardany 
 
 9,729 
 
 4,007 
 
 6,098 
 
 7,153 
 
 27,171 
 
 Csene . 
 
 6,479 
 
 3,626 
 
 3,736 
 
 16,468 
 
 30,936 
 
 Periamos 
 
 3,423 
 
 8,218 
 
 1,352 
 
 16,692 
 
 30,334 
 
 36,011 37,470 18,159 39,471 145,400 
 
 C. — Roumanian 
 
 [Districts where the Roumanian element is clearly in majority 
 
 against the Serb.) 
 
 Versecz 
 
 5,533 
 
 18,174 
 
 3,422 
 
 8,605 
 
 36,978 
 
 Versecz Town 
 
 8,602 
 
 879 
 
 3,890 
 
 13,556 
 
 27,370 
 
 Detta . 
 
 , 1,981 
 
 9,701 
 
 5,722 
 
 9,146 
 
 28,495 
 
 Cakova 
 
 629 
 
 17,376 
 
 2,949 
 
 8,992 
 
 30,479 
 
 Buzias . 
 
 93 
 
 22,820 
 
 6,277 
 
 5,654 
 
 35,762 
 
 Kozpont 
 
 903 
 
 16,109 
 
 6,092 
 
 22,635 
 
 46,372 
 
 Recas . 
 
 3,184 
 
 19,748 
 
 5,462 
 
 5,576 
 
 35,933 
 
 Vinga . 
 
 3,713 
 
 10,408 
 
 4,343 
 
 12,670 
 
 34,104 
 
 Aradul Nou . 
 
 2,039 
 
 9,289 
 
 3,071 
 
 19,319 
 
 34,117 
 
 Lipova 
 
 78 
 
 21,215 
 
 2,703 
 
 10,646 
 
 34,833 
 
 Temesvdr 
 
 3,630 
 
 7,566 
 
 28,552 
 
 31,644 
 
 72,555 
 
 Totals 
 
 30,385 153,285 72,483 148,443 416,998 
 
 It results from the above tables that a grey zone can be 
 established between Jugoslavs and Roumanians, consisting 
 of five districts of the county of Torontal (AHbunar, Banloc, 
 Pardany, Csene, Periamos), to which, for obvious reasons 
 of geography and communication, two districts of the 
 county of Temes (Versec and Bela Crkva) must be added. 
 The remainder of Torontal would fall naturally to the 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE BANAT 341 
 
 Jugoslavs, the remainder of Temes (except the district of 
 Kevevdra, which is Jugoslav) to the Roumanians. 
 
 Within this zone it would not be difficult to draw a 
 frontier which would leave a minimum of Jugoslavs to 
 Roumania and a minimum of Roumanians to Jugoslavia. 
 But the essential preHminary to any drawing of frontiers in 
 this part of Europe is a recognition of the fact that no 
 really ideal frontier can be found, and that it will be 
 necessary to rest satisfied with something second best. 
 It is doubtless this consciousness that is responsible for 
 Roumania's insistence upon the extreme claim of the river 
 frontier (Maros, Theiss, Danube). But even from the 
 strategic standpoint this extreme solution would not bring 
 satisfaction, since it would expose Belgrade (which, having 
 a great future as the meeting-place of commiercial routes 
 is likely to remain the capital of Jugoslavia) to the guns of 
 a foreign State immediately across the river. The solution 
 of such difficulties must be sought on new lines. Just as 
 the thorny question of Italo-Jugoslav relations cannot be 
 completely solved without the neutraHsation of the whole 
 eastern Adriatic coast from Trieste to Corfu, so the surest 
 way to avoid future trouble between Jugoslavs and 
 Roumanians is to estabhsh, under international guarantee, 
 a somewhat similar regime in the Banat. It would then be 
 illegal for either power to erect fortifications in any part 
 of this province or to maintain garrisons in excess of some 
 strictly limited number of troops. The estabhshment of 
 a new and extended international regime for the Danube 
 and certain of its tributaries — as part of the general system 
 of control which the Peace Conference will have to apply 
 to certain international railways and waterways — should 
 contribute still further towards consolidating the relations 
 between the two neighbouring peoples. 
 
342 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 From tlie above tables two districts in the north-west 
 of the county of Torontal have been excluded. These are : 
 
 Serbo- 
 Croat. Roumanian. Magyar. German. Total. 
 
 Torok Kanizsa . . 17,104 2,058 24,961 2,961 47,639 
 
 Nagy Szent Miklos . 2,832 10,239 10,982 12,921 43,442 
 
 Totals . . 19,936 12,297 35,943 15,882 91,081 
 
 To their case special considerations apply. They form a 
 rough triangle between the rivers Theiss and Maros and 
 the Aranka, an old and now neglected channel of the latter. 
 Opposite the apex of this triangle, which is formed by the 
 junction of the two main rivers, lies Szeged, the second 
 city of Hungary (118,328 inhabitants, of whom 113,380 are 
 Magyars), and the chief centre of the grain trade of the rich 
 southern plains. The same reasons which can be opposed 
 to the occupation by Koumania of Pancevo and the northern 
 bank of the Danube opposite Belgrade, hold good when 
 the Magyars oppose the occupation of the Aranka triangle 
 by either Roumania or Jugoslavia. Szeged would be 
 even more defenceless than Belgrade, since it lies in 
 flat country ; while the district in question is inhabited 
 by a majority of Magyars. It is in any case clear that 
 these two districts ought to be reserved for special dis- 
 cussion before the Boundary Commission whose duty it 
 will be to recommend a detailed settlement to the Peace 
 Conference. 
 
 It is obvious that special linguistic rights and privileges 
 must be mutually assured to the minorities on each side of 
 the new frontier, just as in the case of Jugoslav and Italian 
 minorities along the Adriatic coast. Hitherto the Rou- 
 manian National Council in Transylvania has shown a 
 tolerant and statesmanlike spirit towards this problem, 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE BANAT 343 
 
 and is ready to concede a special autonomous position to 
 the important Saxon and Szekely communities of eastern 
 Transylvania. Their needs once disposed of, there should 
 be no difficulty in extending the arrangement to the non- 
 Roumanian populations of the Banat. 
 
 At the same time the Roumanians are fully entitled to 
 demand the concession of similar linguistic rights in church 
 and school to the Roumanians of the Timok district in 
 Eastern Serbia (122,429 according to Serbian official 
 statistics for 1900, but probably not less than 150,000, 
 perhaps even 200,000). The claim iof their annexation to 
 Roumania is only advanced by a few irresponsible ex- 
 tremists, and does not rest on any popular demand in the 
 districts in question. Indeed the Roumanians of Timok 
 are, for the most part, immigrants who voluntarily ex- 
 changed Roumania for Serbia owing to the contrast between 
 agrarian conditions and peasant land-tenure in the two 
 countries. In education they are distinctly backward, and 
 not enough has been done for them by the Serbian Govern- 
 ment ; but this apphes generally to the peasant population 
 of the kingdom, not to the Roumanians in particular. 
 Roumania is fully entitled to demand hnguistic rights in 
 church and school for her Timok kinsmen, under the 
 general guarantee of the rights of minorities which the 
 League of .Nations will have to impose upon all nations. 
 But a claim for their annexation cannot be taken seriously. 
 If pressed, it would lead logically to the reopening of long- 
 buried territorial questions in every European country, and 
 if for this reason alone, is certain to be rejected by the 
 Peace Conference. 
 
 In the above survey we have attempted to discuss the 
 question of the Banat upon its merits. There is, however, 
 another basis upon which a settlement might be attempted, 
 
344 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 namely, that of the Secret Treaty of 1916 between Roumania 
 and the Entente Powers. To this there are several capital 
 objections. The first and most practical is that its adoption 
 excludes all possibility of a compromise between Rou- 
 manians and Jugoslavs, for the simple geographical reason 
 that the treaty assigns the entire Banat to Roumania. 
 Our whole argument rests upon the need for friendly com- 
 promise ; and compromise, while often attainable between 
 two parties with exaggerated claims, is never attainable 
 between a party which asks too much and a party which 
 regards the whole- object in dispute as an irreducible 
 minimum. The least reflection will show that insistence 
 upon the treaty must, iti the long run, lead to a settlement 
 by force. 
 
 The treaty is still further disquahfied as a basis of 
 amicable settlement by the fact that it is unilateral, so 
 far as the two Litigants are concerned. Serbia, who in 
 those days represented the Jugoslav cause before Europe, 
 was not merely not consulted in a matter directly affecting 
 her vital interests, but excluded from all the negotiations, 
 and not even allowed to know the nature of the agree- 
 ment reached between Roumania and the Powers. Small 
 wonder, then, if the representatives of Jugoslavia at the 
 Peace Conference have solemnly declared the Treaty of 
 1916 to be null and void, and indeed non-existent so far 
 as their country is concerned. Here, again, it is obvious 
 that the treaty does not provide the basis for amicable 
 agreement between the two countries, and, indeed, is a 
 direct obstacle in the path. 
 
 For us, however, the main objection to the treaty is 
 that. Like the Secret Treaty of London, the Anglo- Japanese 
 Treaty regarding the Pacific (now happily abrogated by 
 mutual consent), and the Secret Treaty for the partition of 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE BANAT 345 
 
 Asia Minor, the Treaty of 1916 is constructed in accordance 
 with the worst traditions of the old diplomacy, and seriously 
 blocks the way for the architects of a new Europe. It 
 rests upon the iniquitous theory that Roumania is entitled 
 to " annex " the Eoumanian districts of Hungary, as if 
 they were uninhabited and unclaimed deserts ; and the 
 fact that their inhabitants have always been so intensely 
 Roumanian in sentiment and so unhesitating in their 
 desire for free union makes the adoption of so unsound a 
 basis all the more amazing and gratuitous. So far as 
 Roumania is concerned, the treaty is no longer needed, 
 since the just claim of the entire Roumanian race to unity 
 and independence in a single democratic State far out- 
 weighs all other considerations in the eyes of the Peace 
 Conference and of the world at large. So long as the 
 question is treated as a mere bargain between foiir belli- 
 gerents we hold that the Roumanian Treaty is morally 
 no less binding than the others, and that the Fourth Treaty 
 of Bucarest cannot be adduced by any man of honour as a 
 ground for repudiating our debt to a very gallant nation. 
 But the question forms part of a far greater problem, 
 which is no less than the reconstruction of Europe, by the 
 common work of all the Associated Powers of both hemi- 
 spheres. Previous commitments of one or other of these 
 Powers cannot be allowed to stand in the way of a general 
 settlement, and must be modified or abrogated according 
 as the principles of Allied poHcy demand. The unanimous 
 acceptance of the Thirteen Points of President Wilson as 
 the basis for the armistice is now admitted on all sides to 
 have been the death-sentence of all the secret treaties 
 without exception, and none save a few professional diplo- 
 matists will shed tears over their grave. 
 
 Never in all history have Roumanians and Jugoslavs 
 
346 - EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 been active enemies, and only an utter lack of statesman- 
 ship and political foresight on both sides and among the, 
 greater Allies will allow the question of the Banat, which 
 so obviously lends itself to friendly compromise, to become 
 a source of enmity and discord in the future. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA ^ 
 
 During the generation preceding the Great War, the Bul- 
 garians were the spoilt darhngs of Western Europe, and it 
 had become the fashion among the numerous journalists 
 who penetrated, for a brief holiday, into the fastnesses of 
 Balkan politics to regard them, not merely as the most 
 enlightened and progressive of Balkan peoples, but as the 
 only Balkan people who had any real future. Among this 
 superficial class of writers and the well-meaning senti- 
 mentalists to whom a chance pamphlet of Mr. Gladstone 
 was the alpha and omega of political wisdom, the Greeks 
 were contemptuously dismissed as degenerate bastards, 
 masquerading under the names of a great past ; the Serbs, 
 seen through the spectacles of Budapest and Vienna (no 
 British journalist deigned to Hve in Belgrade), were regarded 
 as cowardly and murderous ; while the very existence of 
 the Roumanians was almost ignored. The Bulgarian 
 peasant — and every Bulgarian is a peasant — has sterling 
 merits to which we would fain do justice ; but, as in the 
 case of other peasants, the uncritical adulation of strangers 
 has not improved his character. It is not too much to 
 say that the growth of a Bulgarian myth in France 
 and England has been one of the most important con- 
 tributory causes in that decay of Bulgarian public life 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. i. No. 6, November 23, 1916. 
 
 347 
 
348 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 wHch found its supreme expression in the espoifsal of the 
 Teutonic cause. 
 
 Ever since their re-discovery in the middle of last cen- 
 tury, the Bulgarians have been reckoned as members of the 
 great Slavonic race, and in such modern literature as they 
 possess Russian influences are particularly strong. But 
 though their language, with certain interesting peculiarities 
 of its own, is closely related to Serbo-Croat, it is not to be 
 forgotten that the original Bulgars were an invading Mongol 
 tribe from Central Asia, akin to the Turks, Magyars, and 
 other now vanished non-Aryan races. The events of the 
 present war have revived the recollection of their origin, 
 and the Pan-Turanian theory is now industriously preached 
 in Sofia, Budapest, and Constantinople, as the natural basis 
 of a close alliance between Magyar, Turk, and Bulgar, 
 against Panslav barbarism and the corruption of the West. 
 The fact that this whole propaganda is inspired by obvious 
 political motives, and may collapse if the war should take 
 an unfavourable turn for the Central Powers, must not blind 
 us to the seriousness with which it is being pursued ; and 
 we should be ill-advised to treat it with contempt or to 
 ignore the fact that it is the fruit of long years of preparation 
 by Magyar journaHsts, politicians, and commercial houses. 
 Before the war, those who wished to form some clear idea 
 of contemporary happenings in Bulgaria were always certain 
 to find in the journals of Budapest expert comment by close 
 observers on the spot far superior to that provided for the 
 consumption of any other foreign public. 
 
 Bulgarian history is full of extraordinary vicissitudes. 
 During the ninth, and again during the tenth, century the 
 Bulgars were led by rulers of signal ability — the grim and 
 shadowy figure of Ej:um, of whom legend relates that he 
 made a drinking goblet of the skull of his beaten enemy the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 349 
 
 Emperor Nicephorus ; Boris, their first Christian king, 
 whose memory Ferdinand of Coburg invoked at the christen- 
 ing of his son and heir ; and Samuel, who ruled from the 
 Adriatic to the .^gean and the Black Sea, and whose long 
 struggle with Byzantium ended in hideous tragedy at the 
 battle of Belasica in 1014. There, within sight of the 
 Allied lines of 1916, the Emperor Basil broke the power 
 of the first Bulgarian Empire and sent back his 15,000 
 prisoners, blinded, to the camp of Samuel, every hundredth 
 man being left with one eye that he might serve as guide to 
 his helpless comrades. The memory of Basil Bulgarok- 
 tonos — " the slayer of Bulgarians " — ^is more aHve than 
 ever to-day in the peninsula ; and it was with this name 
 that the Athenian crowd acclaimed King Constantine after 
 his victory over the Bulgars at Kukus in July 1913. Thus 
 the feud of Greek and Bulgar dates back for ten centuries, 
 and has assumed many varying phases, of which we have 
 not yet seen the last. 
 
 During the closing years of the twelfth century a second 
 Bulgarian Empire arose, this time as the result of an ill- 
 defined combination between Bulgars and Vlachs. But, 
 by the middle of the following century, it was already 
 once more on the wane, and Thrace was lost to the Greeks 
 and Macedonia to the Serbs. The year 1330 marks the 
 culmination of the first quarrel between Serb and Bulgar. 
 At the battle of Velbuzd the Bulgarian Tsar lost his life, 
 and his country sank to the level of a vassal. The feud 
 led inevitably to the undoing of both races, and made 
 possible the advance of the Turks. The desperate appeal 
 of the Eastern Emperor was disregarded by both Serb and 
 Bulgar, though he is said to have warned them that they 
 would rue the day when they left him unsupported. The 
 jealousies of the small Christian powers directly furthered 
 
350 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 the Turkish conquest, just as those of the Great Powers 
 retarded time after time the day of deliverance, and just as, 
 since 1912, the jealousies of the Balkan Allies, skilfully 
 played upon from without, have restored discord, weakness, 
 and misery to the reviving peninsula. The Serbian mediaeval 
 empire perished at the memorable battle of Kosovo (1389), 
 and that event was followed four years later by the destruc- 
 tion of the last fragments of Bulgarian independence. For 
 nearly five centuries the Bulgars disappeared from the list 
 of nations. 
 
 Turkish rule in Bulgaria did not differ in any essential 
 feature from Turkish rule in Serbia or elsewhere, but 
 nowhere was it so grinding and oppressive. This is of 
 course due to the fact that it lay nearest to Stambul, and 
 formed the inevitable route of every Turkish advance 
 against Hungary and Central Europe. To-day history is 
 teaching us what we did not care to learn before, that the 
 fate of Serbia and Bulgaria has for centuries been determined 
 by their geographical situation. The route of the Turkish 
 armies lay through their land, and all that lay along it had 
 tolbe stamped -flat. To-day, again, Serbia lies across the 
 route of other conquerors moving eastward, and Bulgaria 
 has sold her soul in the vain hope of escaping her hated 
 neighbour's fate, or, rather, in the craven desire to ad- 
 minister the cowp de grace herself. 
 
 If the Turks dug the grave of Slav nationalism in the 
 Balkans, it was the Greeks who jealously guarded the tomb 
 from the gaze of the outside world. All that was left of 
 national life was concentrated in the Church, and the 
 Church, thanks to the policy adopted by Mohammed II. 
 when he conquered Constantinople, became the chief 
 instrument of Hellenisation. The liturgy, the schools, the 
 clergy alike were Greek, and, not content with this, the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 351 
 
 ecclesiastical authorities adopted a grossly reactionary and 
 intolerant view, systematically tried to root out everything 
 Slavonic, and wrought deliberate havoc among the monu- 
 ments and, above all, the MSS. of the historic past. Under 
 such circumstances it is hardly to be wondered at that even 
 the most celebrated scholars of the Slavonic world, the 
 founders of Slav philology on a modern basis, knew next 
 to nothing of Bulgaria or the Bulgarian language. This 
 fact must serve as excuse for the complete ignorance 
 displayed by Western historians of the early nineteenth 
 century in all that concerns Bulgaria. Even Kinglake 
 found it possible to describe his journey through what is 
 to-day the kingdom of Bulgaria without a single reference 
 to the existence of the Bulgarians. 
 
 The prime reason, however, of this oblivion lay in the 
 deathlike quiescence of the Bulgarians themselves. It is 
 no exaggeration to say that, till the third quarter of the 
 nineteenth century, no Balkan people had given the Turkish 
 authorities less trouble. The repeated insurrections of 
 Greeks and Serbs, ending in their assertion of complete or 
 virtual independence, the revival of national consciousness 
 in Wallachia and Moldavia, scarcely touched the mass of 
 the Bulgarian peasantry. When at length the dry bones 
 stirred, the breath came to them from Russia and from 
 Serbia ; there was no great national hero Uke Kara George 
 or Milos among the Serbs, like the countless outlaw chiefs 
 of the Greek islands and mainland, or even like the Rou- 
 manian peasant leader, Vladimirescu. " The Awakener of 
 Bulgaria " is the title which adorns the tomb of Venelin, 
 the Slovak philologist who lived and died at Odessa, and 
 gave the first impetus to the Bulgarian educational system. 
 The early organisers of the revolutionary movement, men 
 like Rakovski and Levski, were tireless enthusiasts, who 
 
352 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 gave their aU to the cause, but not in any way the creators 
 of a new nation. 
 
 The various risings which they organised in the early 
 'seventies were foredoomed to failure, and met with rela- 
 tively little response from the population. But for external 
 events, the ashes might have smouldered unnoticed for 
 another generation, but, in 1875, the permanent unrest 
 which had so long prevailed among the Serbs and Croats of 
 Bosnia, burst into flame and spread to the neighbouring 
 principalities of Serbia and Montenegro ; and their struggle 
 soon broadened into a veritable crusade for the liberation 
 of the Balkan Slavs from the Turkish yoke. Russia stood 
 forward as the champion of Christianity and the Slavonic 
 idea, while Britain, with a shortsightedness for which we 
 are paying heavily to-day, threw her whole weight on the 
 side of Turkish misrule and anarchy. The Treaty of San 
 Stefano dictated to Turkey by the victorious Russians at 
 the very gates of Constantinople was, a few months later, 
 replaced by the settlement of Berlin, which was to form 
 the corner-stone of European law and order for the next 
 thirty years, especially in all matters regarding the Balkan 
 Peninsula. Both settlements were equally unsound and 
 inequitable. That of San Stefano was based essentially 
 on Slav interests and neglected, or did grave injustice to, 
 the non-Slav races of the peninsula — the Greeks, the 
 Albanians, and the Roumanians — while leaving Turkey 
 with frontiers such as defied every law of geography, politics, 
 and common sense. Above all, the new Bulgaria which was 
 to be created would have been quite unduly aggrandised 
 at the expense of all her neighbours. It is, indeed, the 
 exaggerated programme of San Stefano which has become 
 a fixed idea in the slow-moving but tenacious minds of the 
 Bulgarians, and has proved directly responsible for the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 353 
 
 Prussian dreams of hegemony, in which her second genera- 
 tion of statesmen have indulged, and which may still prove 
 to be the undoing of the nation. If the settlement of San 
 Stefano was unjust to all but the Slavs, and did not draw 
 a just line even between those Slavs themselves, the settle- 
 ment of Berlin succeeded in being equally unjust to all, for 
 it was frankly based upon force, upon the interests of 
 the Great Powers, and upon the negation of the rights of 
 small nations. The various Balkan delegates were refused 
 representation at the Congress, and the fate of the penin- 
 sula was decided over their heads, without any serious 
 regard for the wishes of the populations concerned. 
 
 The dream of a '' Big Bulgaria " was no sooner conceived 
 than it was dispelled by the reality of three disunited 
 groups : the new principality, with a population at that 
 time scarcely exceeding two miUions ; Eastern Roumeha, 
 with barely a million inhabitants, under a Turkish governor ; 
 and the unredeemed Bulgarians of Thrace and Macedonia. 
 Such a situation was too unnatural to last, and it is only 
 remarkable that it lasted as long as it did. Russia, who 
 had shed her blood so freely for the liberation of the 
 youngest member of the Slav family, showed herself 
 strangely lacking in tact when it came to consolidating 
 her influence in the new State. The Russians organised 
 the Bulgarian army, laid the foundation of an educational 
 and financial system, and were even responsible for the 
 first draft of the constitution. But its ultra-democratic 
 form was probably intended to leave the chief power in 
 the hands of the Prince, and it was most certainly intended 
 that the Prince should be a mere cipher in the hands of his 
 near kinsman the Tsar. 
 
 Alexander of Battenberg found himself in a position of 
 extraordinary difficulty. Bulgaria was entirely lacking in 
 
 2a 
 
354 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 political tradition. Her people was a nation of peasants, 
 endowed with more than the usual dose of suspicion which 
 is inherent in -most peasantries, and with a natural disposi- 
 tion to disUke all foreigners. Her politicians were untried 
 men, trained in half-a-dozen different schools, and each 
 desperately jealous alike of the person and theories of his 
 neighbour. Alexander himself was as inexperienced as the 
 people whom he was called upon to govern, and soon tired 
 of a constitution which seemed to him unworkable, only to . 
 find himself in the hands of the masterful Russian generals 
 whom the heavy-handed and reactionary Alexander III. 
 sent to maintain Bulgaria in fitting vassalage. Ere long 
 the Prince found that his sole hope lay in a reversion to 
 constitutional methods. But parliamentary life is a plant 
 of slow* growth, which has never flourished on Bulgarian 
 soil ; and, for many reasons, the group system has flourished 
 there exceedingly. The new conditions threw up a number 
 of very remarkable men — Cankov, Karavelov, and, above 
 all, Stambulov, who earned the somewhat misleading title 
 of " the Bismarck of the Balkans." It was his forceful 
 energy that forced Alexander to identify himself with the 
 revolution which united Eastern Roumelia to Bulgaria in 
 1885, and to risk the displeasure alike of Sultan and of Tsar. 
 In a thoroughly characteristic phrase the minister bluntly 
 warned his master that if he would not advance to Philip- 
 popoHs he had better retire to Darmstadt. The union was 
 cemented by the short war with Serbia, provoked by the 
 jealousy and incompetence of King Milan. Dynastic and 
 diplomatic intrigues thus revived the ancient feud between 
 two sister peoples, who, till then, had seemed to be following 
 the same development as England and Scotland in earher 
 centuries. The energy of Stambulov and the military 
 prowess of Alexander carried the Bulgarian army to victory, 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 355 
 
 but the Prince's unexpected self-assertion earned for him 
 the hostility of the Tsar ; and though the nation was un- 
 doubtedly behind him, he lost heart, placed his resignation 
 in his cousin's hands and retired abroad, to end his days as 
 an officer in the Austrian army. For many months the 
 throne of Bulgaria went begging, and it seemed as though 
 the new State must inevitably sink to a position of complete 
 vassalage. But Stambulov devoted all his extraordinary 
 energy to the task of shaking off foreign interference. His 
 was a government of the " strong hand " ; no scruples were 
 allowed to interfere with the end in view, and intrigue and 
 violence were countered by even more drastic methods. 
 The comparison with Bismarck is not altogether inapt. If 
 the famous Prussian Junker had been a peasant, and if his 
 country had spent five centuries under a grinding foreign 
 yoke, his methods, no doubt, would have been correspond- 
 ingly cruder. There is a further parallel between the 
 position of the two great ministers towards the throne. In 
 each case a young and energetic sovereign chafed at the 
 domineering methods and diplomatic prestige of a virtual 
 " king-maker " ; in each case the weather-beaten pilot was 
 dismissed with abrupt indignity, and spent the remainder 
 of his days in sulky and spiteful criticism. But here the 
 analogy ends. Bismarck died full of years and honours at 
 Friedrichsruh ; Stambulov, after more than one abortive 
 attempt had failed, feU a victim to the assassin's -knife 
 before he had completed his fiftieth year. The crime was 
 committed in broad dayhght in a thoroughfare of Sofia ; 
 the police did not Hft a hand to save him from the mutila- 
 tion which followed murder ; and the trial of the criminals 
 was an open and notorious farce. Six months before the 
 murder Stambulov had published an interview in the 
 Kolnische Zeitung, in which he foretold his' end and openly 
 
356 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 hinted that his enemies had " the strongest support " in 
 their designs upon his life. It was notorious that Prince 
 Ferdinand had refused him permission to leave the country, 
 and now public opinion openly credited him with the moral 
 responsibility for the crime and for the manner in which it 
 was hushed up. Many years later Ferdinand was to reveal 
 himself, in a rash moment of candour, to an acquaintance 
 of high diplomatic standing. " I intend to be on the side 
 of the assassins," he said, and hitherto fate has enabled him 
 to keep his word. 
 
 When the true history of the last thirty years comes to 
 be written Ferdinand of Coburg will be remembered as one 
 of the chief corrupters of his age. In him three widely 
 divergent streams unite — the Coburg, the Bourbon, and 
 the Kohary — and there is certainly more of the roue Regent 
 of Orleans, of the cynical '' PhiHppe Jfigalite " of the Revolu- 
 tion, and of Napoleon's unscrupulous army contractor, 
 than of the more soUd and respectable German dynasty 
 which has given kings to so many different countries. A 
 genuine student of ornithology and botany, a passionate 
 collector and expert in gems, an inordinate stickler for 
 etiquette, a physical coward, but possessed by a daring 
 ambition that knows no bounds, a consummate master of 
 the diplomatic game, a shrewd student of human psycho- 
 logy, concentrating his whole attention on the foibles and 
 weaknesses of those around him — Ferdinand should have 
 been a despot of the Italian Renaissance rather than the 
 ruler of a modern peasant democracy. 
 
 For the first nine years of his reign Ferdinand's main 
 efforts were devoted to securing the official recognition of 
 Russia and of the other Great Powers, who hesitated to 
 offend the Tsar by taking the first step. This prolonged 
 indignity has long rankled in the mind of one who sees in 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 357 
 
 Nicholas 11. a rival to the imperial throne and mantle which 
 await him under the dome of Santa Sofia. The baptism of 
 his son Boris into the Orthodox faith broke his wife's heart 
 and provoked the resentment of the Pope, but restored 
 him to the good graces of Petrograd. But tradition and 
 temperament aUke pointed Ferdinand to Vienna and Buda- 
 pest, and, on his Hungarian estates, he could study at 
 leisure those wholesale methods of electoral and ad- 
 ministrative corruption by which the Magyar oligarchy 
 maintained their pohtical power over the unhappy helots 
 of their coimtry. In Budapest, too, he could investigate 
 commercial and financial Panamism as a fine art ; while the 
 Magyar satrapy of Croatia provided him, during the twenty 
 years' rule of Count Khuen Hedervary, with elaborate 
 receipts for seducing the loyalty, sapping the resistance, 
 and corrupting the soul of pohtical parties and individuals. 
 From Hungary, Ferdinand imported with him the specific- 
 ally Magyar quahty of self-advertisement in the foreign 
 press, of throwing dust in the dazzled eyes of strangers, 
 of conceahng under the fair exterior of pretentious new 
 buildings and patent street paving the dearth of moral 
 achievement and intellectual resources. During the twenty- 
 eight years of his reign material progress was enormous ; 
 the dunghill has blossomed into a rose-garden. But we 
 are reminded at every turn of the Serbian proverb, " Too 
 much Hght causes bhndness, not only too much darkness." 
 The Bulgarian has a genuine passion for education, but he 
 lacks as yet the foundations upon which true culture must 
 inevitably rest. With him materiaUst conceptions in 
 private life are balanced by an extreme realism in politics, 
 which borders upon megalomania ; both aUke lend them- 
 selves to exploitation. 
 
 No Balkan country can boast so many political parties 
 
358 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 as Bulgaria ; and this fact is due, not merely to the com- 
 plete absence of Parliamentary traditions, but to systematic 
 encouragement of the group system from above. Ferdinand, 
 in particular, has pursued a pohcy diametrically opposed 
 to that of his neighbour. King Charles of Roumania, who 
 sternly discouraged fissiparous tendencies, and did all in 
 his power to strengthen the party system. It suited Ferdi- 
 nand to have numerous parties, who made up by clamour 
 for their lack of real control, and exhausted in personal 
 bickerings the energies which might otherwise have turned 
 against his own person. Foreign observers have always 
 exaggerated the importance of the parties and under- 
 estimated the power of the Crown and its particular puppets 
 of the moment. In reahty the educated and governing 
 classes soon reconciled themselves to the system of " spoils " 
 developed by the astute '' Coburger." " Enrichissez- 
 vous " became the scarcely veiled invitation to every 
 public man, and foreign bankers, notably those of Buda- 
 pest, obligingly faciUtated the process, while strengthening 
 their own hold upon the country's resources. The secret 
 of Ferdinand's power has lain in his skill in calculating the 
 psychological moment for driving each batch of swine 
 away from the trough of power, and, still more, in his 
 poHcy — pursued with a relentless and uncanny mastery of 
 detail — of supervising their diet. In other words, he has 
 made it his business to pry into the personal activities of 
 his ministers, and his dossier of compromising documents 
 is the envy of every criminal investigation department in 
 Europe. The great Stambulov himself displayed a brutal 
 shamelessness in using his official position to acquire a 
 private fortune ; but his successors sought to veil their 
 rapacity under a thin veneer of external rectitude. Petkov, 
 his successor as party chief, began life as -a needy journalist, 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 359 
 
 but, at the time of his assassination in 1906, he had already 
 acquired a fortune of over a million francs. Such practices 
 became the rule rather than the exception, and more than 
 one voice was raised in protest ; but the system grew and 
 extended its ramifications throughout Bulgarian public 
 life, being favoured by Ferdinand for his own selfish ends. 
 To such a pass have matters come that it has almost become 
 the rule for ministers, after their fall from power, to be 
 arraigned for some illegality committed in office. The list 
 of such trials is a very long one. Foremost upon it stand 
 the names of Mr. Eadoslavov and of two members of his 
 Cabinet, Messrs. Toncev and Ivancov, who, nearly twenty 
 years ago, were prosecuted for using their official position 
 to fill their own pockets. Similar charges were brought 
 against all save two members of the Cabinet of General 
 E,a6o Petrov, and again, against the Cabinet of Dr. Gudev. 
 Quite recently the Stambulovist leader, Mr. Genadiev, who 
 had already been condemned for peculation, has again 
 been brought to trial and sentenced for offences committed 
 when in office. It must, of course, be remembered that 
 such political trials are one of Eang Ferdinand's most 
 approved methods of reducing party leaders to complete 
 subservience, and that trumped - up charges are often 
 levelled at innocent heads. Even Mr. Gesov, during whose 
 premiership the Balkan League was formed, has been the 
 victim of judicial proceedings, based upon the charge of 
 having tampered with a will which brought the fortune of 
 the millionaire, Mr. Gergiev, into his family. The action 
 had not been concluded when war broke out ; but it is 
 obvious that it was being treated as a convenient means of 
 pressure upon a statesman who had always been consist- 
 ently Russophil and Anglophil, and about whom no 
 compromising documents had -hitherto been obtained. In 
 
360 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 short, Ferdinand set himself to create a system by which 
 the individual might grow rich and prosper exceedingly, 
 so long as he remained the faithful servitor of the throne, 
 but risked immediate disgrace and ruin if he ventured to 
 assert his independence. Thus there was always a waiting 
 list for the post of Premier, and whenever Ferdinand 
 had had enough of one politician and his following, he 
 merely had to turn to a rival group and entrust it with 
 the " making " of an election and a majority. Not even 
 in Hungary have such pohtical tours deforce been possible 
 as in Bulgaria, where, at the magic word of the sovereign, 
 a leader, whose party dominates the Sobranje, goes to the 
 country and returns with a following of two or three, while 
 another who stood almost alone returns with an over- 
 whelming majority. It ought to be obvious that all is not 
 gold that glitters in such a State, and that it can hardly be 
 regarded as parliamentary in the Western sense of the 
 word. 
 
 Most of the first decade of Ferdinand's reign was taken 
 up in securing the recognition of Europe and entrenching 
 his extremely insecure position. A still longer period 
 elapsed before he secured the next goal of his ambitions 
 — the declaration of independence and the assumption of 
 the title of Tsar. The next stage, the conquest of Con- 
 stantinople, seemed, for a brief moment, on the eve of 
 fulfilment after the Turkish collapse at Liile Burgas. In 
 each case Ferdinand was playing for his own hand, and 
 skilfully wrested concessions from Russia by his poHcy of 
 mysterious coquetting with Vienna. The proclamation of 
 Independence was made to coincide with the annexation 
 of Bosnia by the Emperor Francis Joseph, and rested on a 
 secret arrangement which dehberately flouted Mr. Izvolski, 
 the Russian Foreign Minister of the day. The latter. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 361 
 
 anxious to retrieve his discomfiture at the hands of his 
 successful rival, Baron (afterwards Count) Aehrenthal, 
 offered Bulgaria exceptionally favourable terms for the 
 liquidation of her debt to Turkey. When Russia thus 
 seemed to have reasserted her influence, Ferdinand, who, 
 meantime, had secured ParHament's consent to the com- 
 plete withdrawal of foreign poHcy from its sphere of control, 
 allowed his Russophil Premier to enter upon a secret 
 engagement with Serbia and Greece, which involved 
 contingent hostihty to Austria-Hungary. But, apart from 
 the fact that Ferdinand almost certainly had no intention 
 of fulfilling such an obhgation, and is even suspected of 
 having betrayed its terms to Vienna, the bait of Santa 
 Sofia outbalanced, in this instance, the ambitious schemer's 
 natural leanings towards the Magyar - German alliance. 
 Though this final triumph was denied him, he again ex- 
 tracted, by skilful overtures to Vienna at the critical 
 moment, Russia's consent to the retention of Adrianople 
 and Thrace by Bulgaria. Hitherto the dangerous game of 
 playing off Russia and Austria-Hungary against each 
 other had produced highly satisfactory results. But, at 
 this stage, Ferdinand, infected by the megalomania of his 
 army and people, allowed his ministers, not merely gravely 
 to underestimate the achievement of Serbia and Greece, 
 but to ignore contemptuously the attitude of Roumania, 
 who, though still loyal to the Central combination of 
 Powers, viewed with disquietude the exaggerated claims 
 of her southern neighbour. 
 
 Ejug Ferdinand's intimate association with Count Tar- 
 nowski, Vienna's able representative in Sofia, further 
 betrayed him into accepting Austria's military aid against 
 Serbia as certain. But General Savov's failure to fulfil his 
 promise of '' cutting through the Serbs like rotten cheese " 
 
362 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 led the military chiefs of the Dual Monarchy to hesitate 
 once more until it was too late ; and the unsympathetic 
 reply of Italy to their theories of a " defensive " war against 
 Serbia finally decided them in favour of inaction. The 
 dream of a Bulgaria enthroned upon " the four seas " and 
 dominating the whole peninsula was replaced by the reality 
 of the Treaty of Bucarest, at which the other four Balkan 
 States imposed their will upon her and left her at the 
 mercy of the advancing Turks. Ferdinand had to " furl 
 his glorious standards until better days." But, for good 
 or for evil, the " Coburger " stood henceforth committed 
 to the Central Powers ; and the events of the Great War 
 were to show that they alone could pretend to satisfy his 
 soaring ambitions. At every turn Russia and her Western 
 AUies were easily outbid by Germany. It was not merely 
 that the Serbs held Monastir and a portion of Macedonia, 
 which Bulgarian sentiment has long regarded as its natural 
 birthright, and that it was more difficult for the Allies to 
 offer the property of Serbia than for their and her enemies. 
 This is true, but it is a mere fragment of the truth. The 
 bait of Macedonia mobilised the Macedonian exiles, whose 
 influence is so strong in the Bulgarian army and in the 
 capital itself. But the real object of Ferdinand and his 
 advisers went far beyond this. The conquest of Macedonia 
 was to be the first step to the assertion of a Balkan hege- 
 mony. Serbia was to be reduced to complete impotence, 
 and the ideal of Jugoslav unity was to be thwarted at all 
 costs — at any rate, until such time as it could be achieved 
 from Sofia rather than from Belgrade, and under Boris 
 of Coburg rather than under Alexander Karagjorgjevic. 
 Meanwhile, Bulgaria was to extend her boundaries to 
 march with Hungary, and thus consohdate her connection 
 with the great Central European State which was emerging 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF BULGARIA 363 
 
 from the ruins of Austrian incompetence and Magyar 
 tyranny. The German Radical leader, Herr Friedrich 
 Naumann, in his newly pubHshed monograph on " Bulgaria 
 and Central Europe," significantly points out that last 
 year, when he wrote his epoch-making book on Central 
 Europe, it was impossible to refer too openly to Bulgaria ; 
 for, " though Tsar Ferdinand and Mr. Radoslavov even 
 then knew very well what they wanted to do, and though 
 the leaders of German foreign policy looked with growing 
 confidence towards Sofia, it was obviously not allowable to 
 speak of the ripening entente. Now all secrets are revealed, 
 and the alliance is there. ..." This is an interesting 
 comment on the pathetic illusions of British Bulgarophils. 
 
 Ferdinand and his people — for it is yet another Ulusion 
 to suppose that Ferdinand is alone in advocating such a 
 poUcy — have gravitated towards Germany and Austria- 
 Hungary as steel to a magnet. Bulgaria's whole policy 
 for years past has been based upon the same ideal of 
 materialism and brute force as that of Prussia or of Hun- 
 gary, The desire for Bulgarian national unity has long 
 since been swallowed up in a claim of racial predominance 
 which postulates the disappearance of Serbia from the fist 
 of nations, and the reduction to impotence of Greece and 
 Roumania. 
 
 For Germany, on the other hand, the importance of 
 Bulgaria is clear. While the Danube is to be the great 
 waterway of " Central Europe," and its alluvial banks a 
 rich field of colonisation, the route now traversed by the 
 Balkan Express is vital and indispensable, as the gate to 
 Constantinople and Bagdad, to Persia and Arabia, to Suez 
 and through Egypt to Central Africa. Herr Naumann is 
 right when he declares that the town of Nis is symbolical 
 of a great policy. '' We (Germans) and the Bulgarians 
 
364 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 likewise had to smash the hostile control of the Belgrade- 
 Nis-Pirot line" at all costs. "A well-ordered Balkan 
 railway is almost more than a State treaty." To every 
 German this is as simple as the alphabet. When will it 
 cease to be a complex algebraical problem for British 
 minds ? 
 
THE UKRAINE PROBLEM ^ 
 
 Apart from an infinity of contributory causes — economic, 
 social, financial — there are five main political problems 
 which lie at the root of the World War. Of these three — 
 Anglo-German rivalry, the question of Alsace-Lorraine, 
 and the fate of Constantinople and the Straits — are fairly 
 generally understood, or at least have from the first been 
 recognisable in their main outHnes : while the fourth, the 
 Southern Slav question, though at first ignored or miscon- 
 ceived even by statesmen of the first rank, has gradually 
 imposed itself upon the popular consciousness. Of the 
 fifth — the problem of the Ukraine — it is true to say that 
 after three years of war its very existence is still scarcely 
 known to public opinion. The course of events since the 
 Revolution, however, has made it impossible to ignore the 
 problem any longer, especially as it has completely revolu- 
 tionised the traditional attitude of Austria and Russia both 
 towards it and towards each other. 
 
 The very name of the Ukraine had fallen into obHvion 
 in the West : but that it is not a mere modern invention is 
 shown by the numerous books devoted to Ukraine events 
 which were published in English as long ago as the seventeenth 
 century. The word signifies " border " and took its origin 
 from the debatable country which then lay between the 
 
 1 From The Nev) Europe, vol. iv. No. 44, August 16, 1917. 
 
 365 
 
366 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 three unwieldy rivals of those days, Turkey, Poland, and 
 Muscovy. But the territory inhabited by Ukrainians 
 stretches far beyond this border country, and its inhabit- 
 ants vwere commonly known as Little Russians, or in 
 Austria as Ruthenes, until gradually " Ukrainian " has 
 come to be accepted as the national name. To-day their 
 numbers are estimated at some twenty to ttventy-five 
 millions on Russian soil, occupying Podolia, Volhynia, 
 Kiev, and Cholm, and stretching far to the east of the 
 Dniepr to the Sea of Azov and beyond ; four millions in 
 Eastern Galicia and Bukovina, and half a million in the 
 Carpathian districts of Hungary. Their earhest state 
 formation was that of Kiev, which accepted Christianity 
 under Vladimir in the tenth century and had already at- 
 tained a high degree of culture and commercial prosperity, 
 before the rival Russian principalities of the north rose to 
 power. Kiev's independence was destroyed by the terrible 
 Mongol invasion of 1239. In a greatly reduced form the 
 state of Halitch- Volhynia dragged out a somewhat pre- 
 carious existence under its own dynasty for a century 
 longer, until it in its turn collapsed before the combined 
 onslaught of Poland and Hungary. The western half (what 
 is roughly the Eastern Galicia of to-day) fell under the 
 Polish crown, while Volhynia, Podolia, and Kiev preserved 
 a looser connection with Lithuania, at whose court White 
 or Little Russian was the predominant language. But 
 after the union of the Polish and Lithuanian crowns in 
 » 1385, the oppressive aristocratic system of Poland asserted 
 its sway more and more, until by the Union of Lublin in 
 1569 the old equality gave place to unfettered Polish hege- 
 mony. In the century that foUowed, however, Poland 
 proved unequal to the task of defending her conquests 
 against the hordes of Tartar invaders from the east or the 
 
THE UKRAINE PEOBLEM 367 
 
 Turkish menace from the south : and in consequence 
 anarchy grew apace throughout the Ukraine. It was 
 under these unsatisfactory conditions that the Cossacks 
 first became a serious poHtical factor, forming as time 
 went on " a regular guerilla repubhc of the steppe," defy- 
 ing all foreign suzerainty, taxation, or military service, 
 and attracting to themselves large numbers of peasants 
 who sought to escape the intolerable burden of serfdom. 
 Thus the lands of the Dniepr and the Don were to all 
 intents and purposes already lost to Poland long before 
 the rising of 1648 united peasants and nobles in a common 
 cause. 
 
 Under its famous Hetman, Bohdan Chmielnitsky, the 
 Ukraine concluded in 1654 the Treaty of Perejaslavl, which, 
 little as it has been respected, has ever since formed in 
 theory the basis of its whole constitutional position. Drawn 
 up in haste and ambiguously expressed , it was none the less 
 a formal act of union between the Ukraine and Moscow, 
 and as such must be regarded as one of the most important 
 stages in the development of modern Russia. But no 
 greater contrast in political outlook can be imagined than 
 that between the two contracting parties. On the one 
 hand stood ancient Moscow, in which autocracy, already 
 strong in its semi-Tartar days, acquired additional strength 
 from the methods which it borrowed from the West ; on 
 the other, a loosely knit republican organisation resting 
 upon essentially democratic local institutions. Just as 
 fire and water cannot mingle, one of these opposing types 
 of government was bound to yield to the other ; and under 
 eighteenth-century conditions thfe victory of Tsardom was 
 wellnigh inevitable. 
 
 From the very first the Tsars encroached upon the privi- 
 leges of the Ukraine, whose Hetmans consequently wavered 
 
368 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 between Moscow and Poland, the victims of continual in- 
 fringements and restrictions from both sides. The attempt 
 to find fresh allies led them into alliance with Turkey and 
 with Sweden, but in each case " the Northern Colossus " 
 proved too strong for them. The picturesque figures of 
 Charles XII. and the Hetman Mazeppa illuminate for a 
 moment this dark corner of history. The battle of Poltava 
 (1709) put an end to all hope of Ukraine independence. 
 Peter the Great, who in one of his ukases took the uncom- 
 promising line that ''it is well known that all Hetmans 
 since Chmielnitsky were traitors," set himself deliberately 
 to break their power. His centralising work was com- 
 pleted by Catherine the Great, who deposed the last Het- 
 man, Cyril Rasumovsky, in 1764, crushed the resistance of 
 the Zaporogue Cossacks in 1775, introduced Rassian ad- 
 ministration in 1780, and three years later replaced the old 
 peasant liberties of the Ukraine by serfdom in its most \ 
 
 cruel form. The Church of the Ukraine was subjected to ^ 
 
 the Patriarch of Moscow, and " a vexatious clerical censor- 
 ship " stifled literary development and russified education, 
 which was far more advanced than the West is apt to '• 
 
 imagine. It is estimated that in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century there were in the province of Cernigov 
 866 schools, dating from the period of Ukraine autonomy ; 
 but sixty years later not one of these survived. 
 
 The partition of Poland complicated the situation still 
 further. The western fragment of the Ukraine fell under 
 Austrian rule, and though this at first seemed to deliver \. 
 
 it more than ever into the hands of the Polish nobility, it 
 did in effect lay the foundations for a revival of national 
 consciousness and culture in the nineteenth century. After 
 1815 in particular the Habsburg Court showed special 
 favour to the "' Ruthenes " and the Uniate Church : and 
 
THE UKRAINE PROBLEM 369 
 
 their language was encouraged both in church and in school. 
 Further concessions were obtained during the Revolution 
 of 1848, and even under the reaction which followed the 
 Ruthenes fared relatively better than any neighbouring 
 race ; for, in its alarm at the revolutionary movement 
 among the Poles, the Austrian Government sought a make- 
 weight among the Ruthenes. But with the failure of the 
 Polish insurrection against Russia in 1863 the whole situa- 
 tion rapidly changed. Galicia became a haven of refuge 
 for the Poles, and Russian repression only served to facili- 
 tate an understanding between Cracow and Vienna. 
 Austria found it well worth her while to buy the support of 
 the Poles by what almost amounted to creating a Pohsh 
 political monopoly in Galicia. The whole administration 
 was Polonised, and in education and the courts the Ruthene 
 language was subordinated to the Polish ; while the most 
 determined attempts were made to undermine that strong- 
 hold of Ukraine national feeling, the Uniate Church, and to 
 introduce enclaves of Polish colonists among the Ukraine 
 peasantry. For a generation past the struggle between 
 Pole and Ukrainian has grown in acuteness, and has centred 
 in the demand for Ukrainian schools and university and 
 for a democratic franchise as a weapon of national defence. 
 Meanwhile, in the Russian Ukraine the old historic 
 traditions smouldered under extremely unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances. For a brief moment national feeling raised 
 its head in 1846, and a brilUant little group of writers 
 created the Guild of SS. Cyril and Methodius at Kiev to 
 further the twin ideals of nationaHty and democracy. But 
 within a year it shared the fate of all similar institutions 
 idider the hateful rule of Nicholas I. : political thought 
 and literary effort were repressed with equal severity. 
 Centralism and autocracy went hand in hand ; and in 
 
 2b 
 
370 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 1863 the Minister of the Interior, Valujev, roundly declared 
 that "the Ukrainian language never has existed, does not 
 exist, and must not exist." On this basis all attempts to 
 develop the language were treated as the first step towards 
 pohtical separatism, and even scientific and historical re- 
 search were viewed with profound disfavour. In 1876 the 
 authorities went so far as to prohibit the publication of 
 any book in Ukrainian, save of a purely historical or literary 
 character : and in practice the censorship made this decree 
 almost absolute. For thirty years this iniquitous embargo 
 was upheld. The sufferings of the Ukrainian peasant-poet, 
 Taras Sevcenko — the Burns of the Slavonic world — will 
 always remain one of the most shameful incidents in the 
 history of national Chauvinism. With a refinement of 
 cruelty Nicholas I. even went so far as to order the exiled 
 poet to be deprived of the physical possibility of writing 
 and painting ; and this order remained in force for three 
 years. But here, too, the spirit of liberty triumphed over 
 aU obstacles — 
 
 Bury me, be done with me ! Rise and break your chain. 
 
 Water your new liberty with blood for rain ! 
 
 Then in the mighty family of all men free 
 
 Maybe sometimes very softly you will think of me ! ^ 
 
 So sang Sevcenko, and his songs became the watchword 
 of a new era for his race and set in motion forces as ele- 
 mental and irresistible as the mighty waters of his own 
 Dniepr. Hatred followed him beyond the grave, and on 
 the centenary of his death the Tsar's soldiers held back 
 with their bayonets the crowds which sought to pay their 
 tribute at his tomb. But on the same day in Tarnopol 
 and in Lvov thousands of peasants gathered in his 
 
 1 From Mrs. Voynich's charming translations (Elkin Matthews, Is.). 
 
THE UKRAINE PROBLEM 371 
 
 honour and hailed him as the re-awakened soul of a 
 great nation. 
 
 For the Ukraine, as for all the nationalities of the 
 Russian Empire, the Revolution of 1905 was the bursting 
 of a dam behind which had gathered the pent-up forces of 
 many generations. In South Russia the democratic move^ 
 ment at once assumed a national Ukrainian form, and its 
 swift progress surprised even its own adherents. After 
 thirty years of utter suppression there suddenly spra*ng 
 up a flourishing Ukrainian press at Kiev, Harkov, Odessa, 
 Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, and Mohilev. In 1905 thirty-four 
 newspapers were founded, and popular pamphlets and 
 other literature were distributed in large masses through 
 various new pubHshing houses. Even after the first check 
 under Stolypin this continued, as is best shown by the fact 
 that the number of copies of Ukrainian books printed rose 
 from 191,000 in 1909 to 600,000 in 1911. Numerous 
 educational and patriotic societies came into being, notably 
 the Prosvita of Kiev ; while the Zemstva and the co- 
 operative unions devoted themselves with special energy 
 to the neglected cause of national education. 
 
 In the first Duma the Ukraine Club consisted of forty 
 deputies. In the sphere of social politics their desires 
 centred upon the land, for which every real peasantry has 
 always hungered. But what lay behind was a programme 
 of national autonomy within a federalised Russia — -a re- 
 version to the idea of contract between equal parties, which 
 Drahomanov and other Ukraine historians read into the 
 famous treaty of 1654. That such a programme was irre- 
 concilable with Polish national claims — resting as they do 
 upon a stubborn insistence on Poland's extreme historic 
 limits and a negation of the modern idea of nationality — 
 served as an index of future conflicts, but was immaterial 
 
372 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 at a moment when the Polish State was still a distant 
 dream. But, with Russian nationalism in the uncom- 
 promising form which dominated society in the last decade 
 of Tsarism the conflict was immediate and fundamental. 
 Not merely the extreme reactionaries in Church and State, 
 but the whole political world which lay between them and 
 the revolutionary parties of the Left, took alarm at a 
 movement so antagonistic to the centralist regime. Under 
 Stoly pin's " cooked " franchise (1907) the Ukrainian de- 
 puties vanished from the Duma, their Press and national 
 organisations were subjected once more to the old methods 
 of repression, and the Ukrainian language of instruction, 
 which had been partially introduced after the Revolution, 
 was again banished from the schools. In short, the move- 
 ment was driven underground,- and to the superficial ob- 
 server it was for the time possible to deny its very existence. 
 Indeed, the Russian nationalists adopted in regard to the 
 Ukraine the very arguments by which the Magyars so long 
 befooled Western Europe in regard to the subject nation- 
 alities of Hungary. It is, of course, true that the Ukrainian 
 and the Great Russian are closer kinsmen, both racially 
 and linguistically, than any other two branches of the 
 Slavonic race. But against the common theory that 
 Ukrainian is a mere local dialect of Russian may be set 
 the formal pronouncement of the Petrograd Academy 
 of Sciences in 1905, recognising it as an entirely distinct 
 language. The essential difference is one -of temperament 
 and political outlook, for in the South the old democratic 
 traditions of the Cossack Republic have never died out. 
 Persecution only served to accentuate this difference, and 
 fanned dying ashes into flame. Never even in the history 
 of national movements was there a more perverse example 
 of a government kindling, by its stupid intolerance, centri- 
 
THE UKRAINE PROBLEM 373 
 
 fugal tendencies among a population which might easily 
 have been appeased with a tithe of what it afterwards came 
 to demand. 
 
 The political interaction between Russia and Austria- 
 Hungary has been very great for at least a generation past, 
 despite the tremendous barriers which impede intellectual 
 intercourse. This was at once apparent in 1905 ; for it 
 was really the Russian Revolution which made Universal 
 Suffrage a living issue in Hungary, and carried it to speedy 
 triumph in Austria. Here the chief obstacle to reform was 
 the aristocratic' caste, which still dominated the Polish Club, 
 and the chief motive of their opposition was fear of the 
 submerged Ruthene democracy, which so eagerly awaited 
 political recognition. The Poles skilfully used their special 
 position in the Reichsrat to extract unjust concessions at 
 the expense of their rivals. Of the 103 seats for Galicia, 
 78 were assigned to the Poles, and only 25 to the Ruthenes, 
 whereas, on a basis of population the proportions should 
 have been nearly equal. None the less, the breach had 
 been efiected, and henceforth the Ukrainian Club was a 
 factor which could not be ignored. The Galician capital 
 Lvov (or Lemberg) became the centre of an acute racial 
 struggle. Situated in territory which is overwhelmingly 
 Ukrainian, the town itself is mainly Polish, with a large 
 Jewish minority, but is none the less a focus of Ukraine 
 national feeling. It has found its patron in that very 
 remarkable figure, Count Andrew Szeptycki, the Uniate 
 Metropolitan of Lvov, who, himself a member of an ancient 
 Ruthene family which had been Polonised till the present 
 century, has long devoted all his energies to the task of 
 spreading education, training up an actiVe and keenly 
 patriotic clergy, and fostering art, literature, and poli- 
 tical thought. The Museum which he founded and the 
 
374 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 " Sevcenko Society," whose publications lie helped to 
 endow, exercised a profound influence beyond the Austrian 
 border, despite all the frowns of official Russia. 
 
 The gross corruption by which the Szlachta — the ring 
 of Polish conservative landowners — endeavoured to prop 
 up their tottering power at the elections of 1907 (the first 
 held under Universal Suffrage) created a very heated atmo- 
 sphere in Galicia, and reacted upon the relations of Poles 
 and Ruthenes. The struggle raged most fiercely in the 
 University of Lvov, which remained in Polish hands, 
 although a limited number of Ruthene chairs had also been 
 created for such distinguished scholars as the historians 
 Hrusevsky and Kolessa. To such an extent were passions 
 roused, that a young Ukrainian student, Sycinski, assas- 
 sinated the PoHsh Governor of Galicia, Count Potocki. 
 Reprisals followed from the side of the Poles, scores of 
 Ukrainian students were arrested, and the great hunger- 
 strike which they organised in prison became one of the 
 political sensations of Austria. The magnitude and de- 
 mocratic character of the national revolt became apparent 
 when a couple of years later Sycinski was smuggled out of 
 prison and across the Russian border, to emerge during the 
 Great War as the leader of the Ukrainian movement in the 
 United States and Canada. 
 
 The Ukrainian party in the Austrian Parliament, though 
 it has produced no outstanding personality who could be 
 compared to the famous Czech leaders Kramaf and Masaryk, 
 has none the less proved its real worth as a firm bulwark of 
 national claims, and is far from neghgible in the interplay 
 of parties. Its democratic outlook — ^inherent in a race 
 whose aristocracy had been assimilated by an alien race 
 — was intensified by bad economic conditions and the con- 
 sequent growth of emigration. Driven alike by racial, 
 
THE UKRAINE PROBLEM 375 
 
 political, and economic reasons into hostility to its Polish 
 masters, it would have gratified its natural Slavonic feelings 
 by such an alliance with the Czechs and Jugoslavs as the 
 summer of 1917 has finally produced ; but in those days it 
 foimd itself repelled by all those who, in their enthusiasm 
 for Russia, accepted the Russian reactionary thesis that 
 Ukrainian nationality is a " fake." It was therefore 
 driven by circumstances to seek temporary allies among 
 the German parties. In the decade preceding the war it 
 was looked upon with growing favour by the Clericals of 
 Vienna and by their patron the late Archduke Francis 
 Ferdinand, who sought to exploit the most national in- 
 stitution of the Au^rian Ukraine, the Uniate Church, as a 
 weapon against Orthodoxy. Fantastic designs of political 
 and military ambition Hnked hands with no less ambitious 
 ecclesiastical pretensions. " Barbarous Russia " was to be 
 " hurled back into Asia," a vast Ukraine kingdom created, 
 stretching from the San to the Dniepr or the Don, as an 
 appanage of the Habsburg Crown, while the Jesuits were to 
 estabhsh their sway in the very heart of the Orthodox 
 church-system and drive in a fatal wedge between Moscow 
 and Constantinople. On the other side stood a certain 
 school of militant Panslavists, who dreamt of nothing less 
 than the extension of the Orthodox faith throughout the 
 Slavonic world, and interpreted political movements in the 
 Hght of religious fanaticism. To them the very existence 
 of a Ukrainian movement in GaHcia and the increasing 
 latitude accorded to it by the Austrian Government seemed 
 a direct challenge of the most dangerous kind. Indeed, 
 self-preservation drove the old regime in Russia to oppose 
 the Ukrainian idea by every means in its power and to 
 encourage and even subsidise the so-called " Moscalophil " 
 party in Galicia. The rivalry of Ukrainians and Moscalo- 
 
376 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 phils — the latter refusing to admit the distinction between 
 Great and Little Russians — was complicated by the jealousy 
 of the Poles, who did not hesitate to join hands with Petro- 
 grad in its campaign of proselytism. The most striking 
 example of this was the sensational end to the High Treason 
 Trial at Lvov in June 1914 ; the accused Moscalophils 
 being acquitted by a jury consisting of Poles and demon- 
 stratively presented with flowers on leaving the court. 
 The concessions wrested from the Poles by the Ukrainian 
 leaders in Vienna in the previous March, under pressure from 
 the Austrian authorities, had equally alarmed Chauvinist 
 opinion among the Russians and the Poles, The promise 
 of a complete Ruthene University at Lvov had now be- 
 come definite, and on many sides the opinion was openly 
 heard that its opening would be regarded as a casus belli by 
 the Petrograd Government. Galicia swarmed with spies, 
 and the traffic in military information assumed unheard-of 
 dimensions. Thus each move and counter-move added to 
 the explosive material which already lay to hand when the 
 final catastrophe came. 
 
FRANO SUPILO: A SOUTHERN SLAV 
 
 PATRIOT! 
 
 Probably but few of those who read the announcement 
 of Frano Supilo's death had any perception of the man 
 and what he stood for. And yet it is no exaggeration to 
 describe him as one of the ablest political brains, not merely 
 of his own nation, but of warring Europe as a whole — one 
 of those who, if once assured a hearing, could not have 
 failed to influence the deliberations of the future conference 
 of peace. The story of his life is the story of a national idea 
 which contributed materially to the causes of the war, and 
 whose fulfilment must be a vital factor in any stable settle- 
 ment of Europe. 
 
 Frano Supilo was born in 1870 of poor parents at Cavtat 
 (Ragusa Vecchia), on the coast of southern Dalmatia. 
 His political career began at the age of 14 as the result of 
 a schoolboy prank. He and two other small boys hissed 
 Crown Prince Rudolf on the streets of Ragusa during an 
 official visit to the ancient republic : and this offence was 
 visited in typically Austrian fashion by expulsion from 
 every scholastic establishment in the Empire. One of the 
 other culprits was the son of the mayor and deputy of 
 Ragusa, then leader of the Croat National Party in Dal- 
 matia : and private influence succeeded in reversing the 
 
 1 From The New Europe, vol. iv. No. 51, October 4, 1917. 
 
 377 
 
378 EUEOPE IN THE MELTINa-POT 
 
 decision, with the result that Melko Cingrija followed the 
 usual academic career and in due course stepped into his 
 father's place as mayor and representative of the town. 
 But Supilo had no powerful patrons, and in his case the 
 veto held good. He was a self-made man in the best and 
 most literal sense of the term : his education was what his 
 own natural genius was able to wrest from adverse circum- 
 stances. The Italian language, the medium of intercourse 
 between a purely Slav province and the outer world, came 
 almost as naturally to him as his native Serbo-Croat ; and 
 as with so many other Croat leaders, his mind was moulded 
 by the teachings and example of the great Italian thinkers 
 and patriots of the last century. At first he scarcely saw 
 beyond the narrow Hmits of Ragusa, a city of magic 
 memories, steeped in its ancient republican tradition, but 
 living upon a dead past, in complete isolation from the 
 world. The little town was as yet immersed in narrow 
 party feuds, in which the national idea was too often 
 overshadowed by religious and social motives ; and oil 
 was continually poured upon the flames by local news- 
 sheets, whose trade was mutual incitement and invective. 
 Supilo, then, at the age of barely twenty found himself in 
 a subordinate position on the stafi of the Crvena Hrvatska, 
 which had been founded to represent purely Croat interests 
 against Serbs and Italians, who had combined to capture 
 the Commune of Ragusa. A mutual friend, who before 
 the war took a growing part in Dalmatian politics, used to 
 tell me that it was only some years after he returned from 
 America in 1898 that he first heard Supilo's name men- 
 tioned at all seriously. 
 
 In 1900 a wealthy group of Croat merchants in Fiume 
 decided to found a paper of their own, still on strictly Croat 
 lines, but with a wider outlook than that of remote Ragusa ; 
 
FRANO SUPILO 379 
 
 and Supilo was selected as its first editor. Its main aim 
 was opposition to the intolerable regime of Count Khuen 
 Hedervary, who since 1883 had governed Croatia as a 
 Magyar satrapy by every imaginable method of corruption 
 and repression, and especially by skilfully playing off Croats 
 and Serbs against each other, and kindling the dying flames 
 ^ of reUgious animosity. The press throughout Croatia had 
 been effectually muzzled and thus Fiume, which being 
 governed direct from Budapest is not subject to the re- 
 actionary press law of Croatia, was selected as the only 
 possible centre for an independent organ of Croat opinion. 
 Under Supilo the Novi List rapidly won its spurs as the 
 leader of the Opposition press, and became a rallying-ground 
 for the younger generation of Southern Slavs, so many of 
 whom had shaken off the dust of Khuen's Croatia in dis- 
 gust, and found their way to Prague University. Through 
 them the ethical teaching of Professor Masaryk and a 
 broader and more generous" outlook upon the Slav world 
 and its essential spiritual unity, permeated to Croatia and 
 Dalmatia, and brought once more to the surface the old 
 idea of Serbo-Croat unity, which had been universal in 
 1848' and had only suffered a temporary eclipse as the 
 result of Austro-Magyar dividing tactics. To all thinking 
 men it was becoming more and more obvious that only 
 common action between Serbs and Croats could save their 
 common country from political absorption and economic 
 
 exploitation. 
 
 Now and for the next decade most of the poUtical 
 initiative among the Southern Slavs was to come from 
 Dalmatia ; and Supilo and the office of his little paper 
 became a natural link between his native province and 
 Croatia — between those of a single race whom a purely 
 arbitrary frontier divided in political allegiance between 
 
380 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Austria and Hungary. Supilo found himself in the thick 
 of the struggle at a time still known as the " Black Days," 
 when rioting *in Croatia was put down by bloodshed and 
 wholesale arrests, and when wild tales of massacre found 
 such universal credence as to induce the peasantry to drape 
 their doors with black. Over thirty Croat deputies of the 
 Diets of Istria and Dalmatia, roused by the general excite- 
 ment, sought for an audience of the Emperor, in order to 
 beg mercy for the victims of the Khuen regime. Francis 
 Joseph's refusal to receive them — due to Magyar influence 
 — marked a turning-point in the relations of the Habsburg 
 dynasty and its Southern Slav subjects. 
 
 The active intervention of the Dalmatians gave a great 
 impetus to the idea of closer co-operation between Croat 
 and Serb ; and it is worth noting that at this time such 
 efforts enjoyed the open sympathy. of the Italian element 
 along the coast. Indeed, in 1904 Supilo was prosecuted 
 for a series of articles in Novi List, urging the vital need for 
 an accord between Itahans and Slavs, if Germanism, their 
 common foe, was not to triumph on the Adriatic. All this 
 coincided with the rise of the Independence Party in Hun- 
 gary, in whom Supilo and his friends saw a possible *ally 
 against the existing regime in both halves of the Monarchy. 
 Nothing, they argued, was to be hoped for from Vienna 
 after the rejected audience, and it would therefore be wise 
 to make a timely alliance with the rising power in Hungary, 
 and thus to secure for themselves a free hand for reforms 
 in Croatia as soon as the new regime should triumph. Such 
 an aUiance presupposed a united front, and after a series 
 of preliminary party conferences forty Croat deputies from 
 Croatia, Dalmatia, and Istria met in October 1905 and 
 drew up the famous Resolution of Fiume. 
 
 This document, which marks an epoch in Jugoslav 
 
FKANO SUPILO 381 
 
 liistory, was drafted by the ex - Mayor of Spalato, Dr. 
 Trumbic, the same man who last August signed with the 
 Serbian Premier" the no less memorable Pact of Corfu. 
 Trumbic received his main backing from fellow-Dalmatians 
 — Supilo, Milic, Cingrija, and Smodlaka. In the light of 
 formulas which the Great War has made common property, 
 the opening phrase of the Resolution deserves our special 
 attention : for it asserts that " every nation has the right 
 to decide freely and independently concerning its existence 
 and its fate," and thus places on record the Croat leaders' 
 title to political maturity. Being directly designed as a 
 basis for close co-operation with the Magyars against 
 Austria, it accepted the existing constitutional arrangement 
 between Hungary and Croatia, but demanded the re- 
 incorporation of Dalmatia in the latter and laid down an 
 elaborate programme of reforms, alike " political, cultural, 
 financial, and economic." Events were to prove that they 
 had utterly miscalculated in relying upon progressive ideas 
 among the Magyars ; but this does not for a moment detract 
 from their work among their own people. 
 
 A fortnight later twenty-six ,Serb deputies met at Zara 
 and formally endorsed both the Resolution of Fiume and 
 the principle of joint poHtical action between the Croats and 
 Serbs as one nation by blood and language. It was on 
 this basis that Supilo became the principal intermediary 
 between Croats and Magyars. In the course of these 
 negotiations he came into close contact with all the Magyar 
 political leaders, and deeply impressed them with his 
 political capacity and vision, his persistence, and his rugged 
 incorruptibility. When, therefore, the Magyar Coalition 
 came into power in Hungary in April 1906, and thereby 
 brought its new ally, the Serbo-Croat Coahtion, into power 
 in Croatia, it was already obvious to Budapest that the 
 
382 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 real driving force in the Croatian capital proceeded from 
 Supilo and his Dalmatian friends, rather than from the 
 nominal heads of the provincial government. \ A year later 
 the Magy arising frenzy of Francis Kossuth''^ and his col- 
 leagues of the Wekerle Cabinet destroyed the shortlived 
 friendship between Magyar and Croat ; and it was Supilo 
 who, after his impassioned appeals for compromise had 
 failed, became the soul of the obstruction by which the 
 forty Croat delegates held up the whole business of the Hun- 
 garian Parliament for nearly two months. His achieve- 
 ment was the more remarkable because, amid all the work 
 which political organisation and journalism entailed in that 
 busy year, he had found time to master unaided the Magyar 
 language to such a pitch as enabled him to use it for his 
 speeches in the Budapest Chamber. 
 
 Croat resistance was of course overpowered, and the 
 Magyars, through their nominee Baron Rauch, introduced 
 an absolutist regime in Croatia and subjected their former 
 friends of the Serbo-Croat Coalition to every kind of political 
 persecution. By this time Supilo was a name to conjure 
 with in both halves of the .Monarchy, and those in authority 
 viewed with growing alarm the emergence of a strong 
 popular leader who owed nothing to position, favour, or 
 even education. " We must destroy him at all costs," 
 said a high Austrian official in 1907 to Mr. Steed. '' He 
 cannot be bought ; he must be put out of harm's way." 
 Though Vienna was not devoid of men who realised the 
 full significance of the Southern Slav problem for Austria- 
 Hungary, their warnings were disregarded, and official 
 Austria made itself the accomplice of official Hungary in a 
 dehberate attempt to wreck the idea of Serbo-Croat unity 
 and at the same time to use its growing popularity as a 
 lever for discrediting and attacking independent Serbia. 
 
FKANO SUPILO 383 
 
 The full perfidy of the methods employed to this end 
 are still very inadequately realised in the West, though 
 they throw a searching Light not merely upon Austria- 
 Hungary's traditional policy, but also upon one of the 
 prime causes of the present war. The annexation of Bosnia 
 in October 1908 was preceded for many months by a skilful 
 press campaign, intended to suggest that the leaders of 
 the movement for unity were inspired, and even directly 
 financed from Belgrade, and that thus so far from voicing 
 any genuine national demand, they were mere venal agents 
 of an alien dynasty. Wholesale arrests took place in 
 Croatia, and in March 1909 there opened at Agram a 
 monster treason trial which was to drag on for seven months 
 amid scandals worthy of Judge Jeffreys himself. The whole 
 apparatus of spies, informers, and agents provocateurs with 
 which Vienna and Budapest had flooded the Southern Slav 
 provinces was mobilised for the occasion; and as a further 
 means of intimidation the secret police actually organised 
 a band of hooligan students to set upon some of the CoaH- 
 tion leaders in the main streets of Agram. Supilo was a 
 victim of one of these assaults. As the Bosnian crisis 
 dragged on and the risk of war with Russia grew, yet other 
 poisoned weapons were employed. On Aehrenthal's own 
 orders the Viennese Foreign Office supplied Austria's lead- 
 ing historian Heinrich Fried] ung with a formidable array of 
 " documents," purporting to estabUsh the corrupt compli- 
 city of the Serbo-Croat leaders in a widespread revolutionary 
 plot organised by the Serbian Government in Croatia and 
 Bosnia. On the very day fixed by the Austrian General 
 Staff for a final rupture with Serbia the first instalment 
 of Friedjung's " revelations " appeared in the Neue Freie 
 Presse, At the last moment Eussia yielded to William II. 's 
 demonstration " in shining armour," and the danger of 
 
384 EUKOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 a European war was averted for the time ; but the news 
 reached Vienna so late at night that Aehrenthal's attempt 
 to suspend publication came too late. In those days it was 
 an open secret in Vienna that one of the first steps under 
 martial law would have been the execution of Supilo and 
 other coaUtion leaders. As, however, peace was preserved, 
 nothing could prevent them from bringing a collective 
 action for Ubel against Dr. Fried] ung. 
 
 The amazing revelations of the Fried] ung Trial cast 
 an indelible stain upon Austria's diplomacy, and afford 
 crushing proof of her bad faith towards Serbia. For the 
 " documents " upon which the defence relied were proved 
 to be impudent forgeries, concocted by officials of the 
 Austro-Hungarian Legation in Belgrade, and supplied en 
 gros, with the connivance of the Minister, to the Foreign 
 Office in Vienna, for the purpose of poisoning the wells 
 of public opinion against the Jugoslavs inside and outside 
 the Monarchy. These forgeries, which deserve a special 
 chapter to themselves,^ were far too gross to have deceived 
 the merest child ; and when Professor Masaryk on the 
 floor of the Austrian Delegation branded the guilty diplo- 
 matist as a second Azev, the spy and ageiit frovocateur , the 
 Foreign Minister, remained seated in no less guilty silence. 
 Those who hke myself were present at the Fried] ung Trial 
 will never forget its atmosphere of mingled perfidy and 
 prejudice. Still less will they forget the venomous and 
 concentrated attack launched against the person of Supilo, 
 revealing as in a flash the recognition of his strength and 
 the resolve to annihilate him at all costs. In those days 
 Supilo stood the test of an ordeal such as comes to few men, 
 
 '^ Full details of this sensational affair are to be found in my book, 
 "The Southern Slav Question" (1911), and a more general survey 
 in *' German, Slav and Magyar'" (1916). " ^ 
 
FRANO SUPILO 385 
 
 and those who saw him in the flames could never again 
 doubt his metal. 
 
 During the trial Supilo's colleagues loyally supported 
 him, but after it their paths forked asunder. While most 
 of them were too ready to rest upon their oars after so 
 triumphant a vindication of their honour, SupHo was bent 
 on continuing the fight with renewed energy. Henceforth 
 he stood apart from the parties, relying more and more upon 
 the rising generation and making of his 2Vow List a true 
 focussing point of the growing movement for unity and 
 religious freedom. Like the overwhelming mass of his 
 people, he hailed the Balkan victories of Serbia as the herald 
 of resurrection, and seemed to wait for the trumpet call that 
 was to usher in the final struggle. To the very last the 
 ruling factors in the Habsburg Monarchy would have none 
 of him ; none have ever known better than they how to 
 squander or reject their national resources in men and in 
 ideas. Supilo's whole career is a crushing indictment of 
 their whole system. It was his unpardonable crime to 
 combat the principle of Divide et Impera, and to help to 
 join indissolubly those whom God's Vicegerent in Vienna 
 had resolved should remain asunder. 
 
 On the eve of war Supilo was walking in Tirol, and 
 crossed the Itahan border to await events. The great 
 storm, whose gathering electricity he and his compatriots 
 had long felt around them, had at last burst, and for him 
 there could be only one choice. To the Jugoslavs Austria's 
 war with Serbia was a civil war, dehberately designed to 
 shatter for ever the dream of unity and freedom. Supilo 
 found his way to Rome and London, and in company with 
 such other Jugoslav leaders as succeeded in crossing the 
 frontier — notably his old friend Ante Trumbic of Spalato — 
 devoted himself to pleading the cause and watching the 
 
 2c 
 
386 EUEOPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 interests of the Jugoslavs in Entente countries. The time 
 has not yet come to reveal his signal services to that cause 
 in the spring of 1915, the skill with which he elicited essen- 
 tial facts from the official world, the persuasive eloquence 
 and resource of argument by which he succeeded in en- 
 lightening ignorance in high places. But on one aspect of 
 his activity special stress must be laid. Of all the Jugoslav 
 leaders Supilo had the clearest grasp of the Adriatic problem 
 as a whole, and of the capital importance of an intimate 
 understanding between Italians and Jugoslavs, alike in 
 their mutual interests and in those of the Entente as a 
 whole. Undeterred by the yelpings of the gutter press, 
 he worked incessantly to remove the causes of friction and 
 distrust, and had already won the friendship and confidence 
 of many representative Italians. Thus we shall mourn 
 him not merely as a Slav patriot, but as a true friend 
 of Italy. 
 
 To those who did not know him it is difficult to convey 
 the full timbre of Supilo's mind. He was a real elemental 
 force in politics, commanding attention by sheer strength 
 of will, even where he could not gain entrance by more 
 personal qualities. His political flair was as unrivalled as 
 the patience with which he pieced together fragments of a 
 story, tested their truth by exploring many a devious side- 
 track and covered up his traces as he advanced. Nothing 
 was more fascinating than to watch him adjusting his focus 
 anew to the unfamiliar political conditions of Paris and 
 London, and weighing in the scales of his mind the statesmen 
 and diplomatists of the Entente. One of the secrets of his 
 success was the zest with which he studied the psychology 
 of all with whom his political work brought him into con- 
 tact ; and here his very lack of training stood him in good 
 stead, enabling him to apply an absolutely untouched 
 
FRANO SUPILO 387 
 
 intellect of the very first order to his study of men and 
 events. 
 
 Like every man of genius, he had the defects of his 
 qualities. He could not suffer fools gladly and took an 
 almost impish delight in letting many of his weaker col- 
 leagues feel the grip of steel within the velvet of the glove. 
 He never learnt the supremely difficult task of leading, 
 while seeming to be led. Born of a race which is extra- 
 ordinarily subjective and personal, Supilo, too, was swayed 
 unduly by personal likes and dislikes. He had all the 
 secretiveness of the peasant and not a little of the peasant's 
 distrust of strangers ; but, though he regarded himself as 
 exceptionally ruse, there was in him also an element of 
 naivete and even of childlike simpUcity which constituted 
 much of his charm. When once he gave his confidence he 
 did so wholeheartedly. Simple in his tastes, loyal in his 
 friendships, he set an example of sterhng honesty and 
 straight dealing against which calumny and malice beat in 
 vain. Behind a heavy and at first sight unarresting 
 exterior there was hidden an amazing vitality whose 
 magnetic force affected all around him. Having been 
 privileged to know him for nearly ten years of stress and 
 trial, I can only re-echo the phrase with which Professor 
 Masaryk summed up his defence of Supilo in the memorable 
 Friedjung Trial — " For him I would lay both my hands in 
 the fire." 
 
 To the cause to which he devoted every energy, his 
 death is a cruel loss ; but to describe it as irreparable 
 would be the worst of all reflections upon his memory. 
 Supilo built surely upon unshakable foundations. He 
 has died in exile, with the Promised Land not yet in sight, 
 but truth is on the march, and nothing can arrest its 
 course. That sense of spiritual unity which has been latent 
 
 2c2 
 
388 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 through, centuries of oppression, has kindled into flame by 
 the great events of our own century, and has at last passed 
 into the consciousness of the whole race. We cannot as 
 yet foresee the political form in which this unity will find 
 its practical expressions ; but we know that as the sparks 
 fly upward, so in one form or another — soon or late, with us 
 or against us — the Southern Slavs will achieve their national 
 ideal. And in the Temple of Fame by which another great 
 Dalmatian, Ivan Mestrovic, hopes some day to commemo- 
 rate the forerunners and champions of a new order, the name 
 of Frano Supilo will assuredly not be forgotten. 
 
GBNEKAL STEFANIK 
 
 Th£ death of General Stefanik is one of those swift turns 
 of fate to which we mnst submit, but which we cannot 
 hope to explain. It would take the imagination of a Greek 
 poet to do justice to the tragedy of this modern Icarus, 
 plunging to destruction from the element which he had 
 made his own at the very moment when for the first time 
 he saw his country free after a tyranny of centuries, 
 and freed in no small part owing to his own efforts. There 
 are not many men to whom it is given to die at such a 
 height of emotion or by a death which they would so 
 unquestionably have preferred. 
 
 Like so many of his most distinguished compatriots, 
 Milan Stefanik was the son of a Lutheran village pastor. 
 From the first he was passionately devoted to his Slovak 
 nationality ; and as there was no room for so adventurous 
 a spirit in the Hungary of the closing nineteenth century, 
 he foimd his way first to Prague, then to Ziirich University, 
 and soon after began his active scientific career at the 
 Observatoir^ of Meudon. When first I heard his name 
 ten years ago, I little dreamt under what circumstances 
 1 should make his acquaintance, nor how stirring a part 
 he was to play. During one of my visits to Hungary the 
 Chauvinist Press gave some prominence to an " incident " 
 which had occurred in the luncheon car between Budapest 
 
 389 
 
390 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 and Vienna. A young astronomer, returning from his 
 parents' liome to his post in Paris, had actually had the 
 audacity to speak Slovak to a friend in the presence of 
 Magyar deputies and officials, and had even dared to 
 resent their insulting protests. There were loud threats 
 of a challenge to the rash intruder upon his native soil, 
 and he was said to have fled before the representatives of 
 a superior culture. But the simple facts were that he 
 deliberately returned from Vienna to Budapest, sent a 
 message that he was at the entire disposal of his challengers, 
 and only left again when it became clear that they had 
 pressing engagements elsewhere. The whole affair was 
 highly characteristic of the ideas of liberty and good- 
 breeding which then prevailed in the " Millenary Magyar 
 State." 
 
 During the decade preceding the war (he only lived to be 
 thirty-eight) he won a high reputation in the scientific world 
 by his researches in every continent — in Thibet, at Cape 
 Horn, on the Upper Amazon, in the Sahara and Tahiti — 
 and the political tact which he revealed on more than one 
 of these occasions was to stand him in good stead at a 
 later period, when no connection, however slight, mth the 
 Western political world could be neglected by a protagonist 
 of the Czech cause. 
 
 When war broke out, Stefdnik volunteered for the 
 French army and entered the ranks as a private soldier. 
 Certain meteorological proposals made by him speedily 
 attracted General Foch's attention, but he preferred active 
 service in the field to the post offered to him. He entered 
 the French air force, and rapidly made his mark by a 
 combination of scientific knowledge, eagle sight, and per- 
 fervid enthusiasm. Never very strong in health, he 
 sustained grave injuries in an accident during the Serbian 
 
GENERAL STEFANIK 391 
 
 campaign, and after the retreat through Albania underwent 
 an operation which rendered all physical exertion finally 
 impossible. But this handicap only served to increase 
 tenfold his other activities, and henceforth he devoted 
 his entire effort to the cause of Czecho- Slovak unity and 
 independence. Already assured of the friendship of the 
 French, from M. Briand downwards, he obtained through 
 their good offices the permission of the Italian High 
 Command to distribute leaflets from an aeroplane to the 
 Czech troops in the Trentino. It was on this occasion 
 that he was able to detect and report to General Cadorna 
 in the very nick of time certain formidable concentrations 
 of Austrian troops till then unsuspected by the Italians. 
 From now onwards he became more and more closely 
 identified with the efforts of Professor Masaryk and Dr. 
 Benes to win over the Entente countries to the Czecho- 
 slovak cause, and he soon became one of the triumvirate 
 which eventually secured formal recognition from Paris, 
 London, Rome, and Washington. He visited Russia and 
 Roumania for the purpose of organising the Czecho-Slovak 
 prisoners in those countries, and although the Tsarist 
 regime blocked all his efforts, his visit undoubtedly prepared 
 the ground for Professor Masaryk, who reached Petrograd 
 in the early summer of 1917 and was soon able to establish 
 the famous Czecho-Slovak army on a firm basis. 
 
 In April 1918 Stefanik, now honorary Colonel in the 
 French army, was a prominent figure at the memorable 
 Rome Congress, whose public decisions undoubtedly 
 •contributed so materially towards the destruction of 
 Austria-Hungary, but which on the attainment of victory 
 have been so cynically repudiated by the statesmen and 
 public opinion of Italy. In the folloT\dng month, very 
 largely as the result of the personal relations which he 
 
392 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 had established with General Diaz and King Victor 
 Emanuel, Colonel Stefanik was able to conclude, in the 
 name of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, a military- 
 convention regulating the status of the Czech legions on 
 the Italian front, and specially devised so as to facilitate 
 the defection of their comrades from the Austrian ranks 
 and the demorahsation of the neighbouring German and 
 Magyar units. 
 
 During the summer of 1918 the role of the Czecho- 
 slovak army in Russia became increasingly important, 
 and indeed is known to have definitely saved the Allied 
 cause in Siberia and even west of the Urals. To 
 complete its organisation and to devise guarantees for 
 its safety in so trying and isolated a situation, Stefanik 
 went out with the French General Janin to Vladivostok 
 and Central Siberia, where his presence inspired his 
 discouraged countrymen with fresh enthusiasm. On the 
 eve of the final debacle of the Central Powers, he became 
 War Minister in the provisional Czecho-Slovak Govern- 
 ment proclaimed in Paris by Professor Masaryk with the 
 consent and approval of the Allies ; and when soon after- 
 wards Prague became the capital of an independent 
 RepubHc, his appointment was confirmed by acclamation. 
 Many dehcate problems of repatriation, to say nothing of 
 high politics, had detained him in the West, and it was 
 only now that he was returning home, relying on his 
 favourite element the air to save him from touching enemy 
 soil. 
 
 With his countrymen General Stefanik had al;:eady 
 become a legendary figure, and his name will to all time 
 be bound up with one of the most splendid romances of 
 the Great War. His was a many-sided nature, and while 
 some will think of him as a mediaeval knight-errant flung 
 
GENERAL 8TEFANIK 393 
 
 by some freak of destiny into the era of the telephone and 
 the airship, I prefer to regard him as a forerunner of the 
 twenty-fifth or thirtieth century. For he was no mere 
 creature of impulse or political passion : behind a reserved 
 exterior there was a whole philosophy of thought and action. 
 Such wretched health as. his would have forced most men 
 away from the directing currents of life. Almost it may be 
 said of him that he lived, not as other men on food and 
 drink, but by sheer force of will and applied mathematics. 
 The motto which fits him above all others is — Cogito, ergo 
 sum. And if his own fragile will was able to defy physical 
 disability, still more was this true of his political creed. 
 Like his chief — now President of the new Republic — he 
 set himself a distant goal, only attainable through arduous 
 effort, and to the ruck of mankind five short years ago 
 so veiled in mountain mist as to seem not merely fantastic, 
 but criminally impossible. It shall be, therefore it IS — 
 so he reasoned. The mists have rolled away, and to the 
 eye of faith the goal is revealed. Masaryk and his pupils 
 have proved to all time that Realpolitik, so far from 
 depending upon a skilful and unscrupulous adaptation to 
 the circumstances of the moment, can only hope to succeed 
 if it is based upon those fundamental moral factors which 
 outlive dynasties and States, and which are to politics 
 what the sun's flame is to the dead &,shes of a fire. To 
 Stefanik, the outcast son of a helot nation, the Slovak 
 hymn used no mere figure of speech when it announced 
 the dawn of liberty amid the thunders of the Tatra ; and 
 he lived to see the Magyar vultures driven from their 
 nests. For him le jour cle gloire est arrive, and it will be 
 enough for him if the Slovak peasantry guard his memory 
 in their hearts. They have already shown those gifts of 
 delicacy and imagination which their friends knew to 
 
394 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 expect of them. By their spontaneous desire the remains 
 of their latest hero, and of the three gallant Italians who 
 found their death with him, will rest in a rock-hewn grave 
 on the highest spur of the Small Carpathians, as guardians 
 of Slovensko^s freedom. And there surely he may rest in 
 peace. For to us, who mourn the death of a very gallant 
 gentleman, it is clear that he is but the type of his reviving 
 nation, and that others will fulfil what he has made ripe 
 for fulfilment. 
 
 Prague, 
 May 7, 1919. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Achmet Riza, 41 
 
 Adriatic, 103, 130, 223, 297-325, 341, 
 
 386 
 Aehrenthal, Count, 6, 7, 11, 54, 94, 
 
 361, 383 
 Agadir, 90 
 
 Agram (Zagreb), 6, 13 
 Aksakov, 215, 220 
 Albania, 14, 20, 191 
 Aldobrandini, Princeee, 171 
 Alexander m., 216, 354 
 Alexander of Battenberg, 353 
 Alsace, 169, 178, 188, 365 
 Andr4ssy, Count, 29, 54, 261 
 Andrdfisy, Count, jun., 331 
 Anglo-French Agreement, 87, 121 
 Anglo-Bussian Agreement, 121 
 Apponyi, Count, 329 
 Arabs, 43 
 
 Arbeiter Zeitung, 57 
 Armaments, 193 
 Armandj Count, 171 
 Armenia, 122 
 
 Armistice, Austro- Hungarian, 305 
 Arsa boundary, 315, 319 
 Asia Minor, 42, 117, 320, 345 
 Asquith, Mr., 64, 66, 131, 144 
 
 Bach System, 28 
 
 Bagdad Railway, 95, 117 
 
 Bakunin, 227 
 
 Balbin, 213 
 
 Balfour, Mr., 182 
 
 Balkan Wars, 53, 107, 157, 219 
 
 Banat, 26, 112, 335-46 
 
 Banffy, Baron, 331 
 
 Baritiu, George, 329 
 
 BasU n.. 349 
 
 Bauer. Otto, 37, 43 
 
 Belgium, 84, 92, 103, 148, 178, 187 
 
 Beneg, Dr., 306, 391 
 
 Berchtold, Count, 8 
 
 Berlin-Bagdad, 145, 181, 206 
 
 Berlin, Congress of, 61, 139 
 
 Bessarabia, 230 
 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, 100, 144 
 
 Bielohlawek, 294 
 
 " Big Bulgaria," 353, 362 
 
 Bismarck, 64, 88, 272, 355 
 
 Black Sea, 236 
 
 BlajV 327 
 
 Bohemia, 134, 177, 180, 189, 190, 217, 
 
 224, 250-72 
 Bohoricz, 212 
 Boljetinac, Isa, 9 
 Bolfieviks, 155, 226, 227, 238 
 Boris, 349 
 Boselli, Signor, 130 
 Bosnia, 6, 10, 38, 104, 177, 265, 301 
 Bratianu, Mr., 196 
 Bratislava (Pressburg), 281, 285 
 Brest, Treaty of, 55, 155, 189 
 Briand, M., 144, 164, 391 
 Bucarest, Treaty of, (1913) 109, 11 L 
 
 (1917) 190, 345 
 Buccari, 321 
 Bulgarians of Thrace, 42 
 
 Cabrinovi6, 4 
 Cadoma, Gen,, 391 
 CampbeU-Bannerman, Sir H., 90 
 Carasso, 41 
 
 Carpatho-Russians, 288 
 Caraon, Sir E., 117 
 Catherine II., 214, 368 
 Catholicism, Slav, 74, 220 
 
 395 
 
396 
 
 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Chalice, People of the, 258 
 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, 96 
 
 Charles IV., 253, 276 
 
 Charles XII., 368 
 
 Charles I. of Austria, 59, 161, 166, 167, 
 
 175 
 Charles I. of Roumania, 358 
 Chmiehiitsky, 367 
 Clam-Martinic, Count, 166 
 Clemenceau, M., 92, 93, 164, 168, 170, 
 
 175 
 Coahtion, Serbo-Croat, 6, 13, 106, 381, 
 
 382 
 Comenius, 262 
 Concordat, Serbian, 75 
 Congo, 123 
 
 Conrad von Hotzendorfif, 10 
 Constantine, King, 111, 113, 115, 118, 
 
 196, 205, 349 
 Constantinople, 67. 126, 130, 193, 197, 
 
 350 
 Constituent Assembly, 240, 245 
 Corridor, Czecho- Jugoslav, 295 
 ^ Cossacks, 367 
 Crawford Price, Mr., 107 
 Cuvaj regime, 14 
 Cyril, St., 38, 210 
 Czecho-Slovak Army, 393 
 Czechs, 25, 29, 177, 209, 250-96 
 
 cursirn 
 Czemin, Count, 54, 155, 166 
 
 Dalmatia, 2, 34, 103, 104, 177, 190, 
 
 213, 300, 311, 317, 379 
 Danev, Dr., 2 
 Danilevski, 216, 221 
 Danube, 73, 116, 192, 197, 204 
 Danzig, 73, 140, 193 
 Dardanelles, 94, 126 
 Deak, 29, 261, 331 
 Debidour, M., 141 
 Defenestration, 258 
 Delbruck, Prof., 77 
 Delcasse, M., 103, 118, 126 
 Delegations, 53 
 Dismemberment Policy, 65 
 Djavid Pasha, 41, 95 
 Dniepr river, 366, 375 
 Dobrudja, 195, 197 
 Dogger Bank, 18 
 Dominions, 101, 14') 
 
 Dostoievski, 221, 232 
 
 Drahomanov, 371 
 
 Drang nach Osfen, 222, 236, 313 
 
 Dual System, 1, 19, 29, 52, 264 
 
 Duma, ru:st, 371 
 
 Durazzo, 11 
 
 Edward VIT., 86, 90, 121 
 Egerland, 277, 279 
 Eisenmann, M., 30 
 Elections in Hungary, 332 
 Enos-Midia line, 95 
 Enver Pasha, 41 
 Eotvos, Baron, 29, 37 
 
 Fadejev, Gen., 222, 251 
 Falkenhayn, Gen., 194 
 Federalism, 45, 56 
 Ferdinand IE., Emperor, 259, 276 
 Ferdinand, King, 96, 108, 349, 355- 
 
 356, 359 
 Finance, International, 161 
 Finland, 177, 189 
 Firczak, Bishop, 329 
 Flume, 13, 103, 193, 311, 316 : Resolu- 
 
 tion of, 380 
 Fleet, Austro- Hungarian, 305, 323 
 ForgAch, Count, 7, 9, 18, 106 
 Francis L, 51 
 Francis Ferdinand, 1-16, 37, 69, 106, 
 
 166, 375 
 Francis Joseph I., 9, 54, 264, 360, 380 
 Frankfurt ParUament, 26 
 Frankfurter Zeitung, 45, 57, 167 
 Friedjung, Dr., 6, 13, 18, 168, 267, 383- 
 
 384 
 FuUerton, :Mr. Morton, 123 
 Funder, Dr., 170 
 
 Galicia, 34, 75, 103, 108, 132, 177, 189, 
 
 281, 369, 376 
 Ganz, Hugo, 57 
 Genadiev, Mr., 359 
 George V., King, 97, 109 
 George, Prince of Greece, 112 
 German Radicals, 77 
 Germans of Austria, 58, 278 
 
 of Bohemia, 271, 276-9 
 
 of Hungary, 296 
 GeSov, Mr., 359 
 Gladstone, W. E., 143, 347 
 
INDEX 
 
 397 
 
 GlagoUtic rite, 318 
 
 Ooehen, 118 
 
 Goluchowski, Count, 30 
 
 Gorizia, 298, 310 
 
 Gortchakov, Prinoe, 48 
 
 Gounaris, Mr., 112 
 
 Great Austrian idea, 23 
 
 Grey, Sir E. (Lord), 18, 86-120, 125, 
 
 184, 204 
 Gudev, Mr., 359 
 Ghierre Sociaie, 118 
 Gunduli6, Ivan, 213 
 
 Habsburg, House of, 23, 45, 49, 68, 
 
 134. 162, 177, 276 
 Hague Tribunal, 17 
 Hakki Pasha, 95 
 Haldane, Lord, 91 ' 
 Hardinge, Lord, 88 
 Harrison, Col., 107 
 Hartwig, Mr., 9, 16 
 HavliCek, K., 260 
 Heraclea, 123 
 Herv6, M., 118 
 Herzen, A.. 220 
 Hoffmann, Gen., 238 
 Hohenberg, Max of, 49 
 Hohenwart, Count, 54 
 HohenzoUemism, 147 
 HoUo, L., 172 
 Homiakov, 215 
 Hugo, Victor, 232 
 Hus, John, 210, 250-54 
 Huszar, Mr,, 172 
 Hyndman, Mr., 86 
 
 Ipol river, 285 
 
 Islam, 41, 43 
 
 Isonzo river, 314 
 
 Istria, 71, 103, 190, 298, 311, 
 
 380 
 Izvolski, Mr., 103, 360 
 
 Jaffa, 123 
 
 Jagi6, Prof., 209 
 
 JagieUon, Vladislav, 210, 256 
 
 Janin, Gen., 392 
 
 Janissaries, 39 
 
 Jews, 290 
 
 Joffre, Gen., 117 
 
 John, K. of Bohemia, 253 
 
 Johnston, Sir H., 122, 123 
 Joseph II., 24 
 Jugoslav Divisions, 302 
 Jugosldvia, 71, 102, 190, 224, 270, 273, 
 296, 316, 321, 339, 363 
 
 Ka6i6, 213 
 
 KajmakCalan, Mt., 204 
 
 Kahioky, Comit, 30, 54 
 
 Kania, Mr., 7 
 
 Kara George, 351 . 
 
 Karvin mines, 293 
 
 Katkov, 215 
 
 Kavala, 73, 111 
 
 Khalifate, 43 
 
 IChuen H6dervAry, Count, 357, 379 
 
 Kiev, 366, 369 
 
 Kinglake, 351 
 
 Eorejevski, 215 
 
 Klofa6, Mr., 267 
 
 KoUdr, 7 
 
 Komensky schools, 295 
 
 Koriatovi6, Theodore, 287 
 
 Kogice, 290 
 
 Kosovo battle, 350 
 
 Kossuth, 27, 261, 382 
 
 Koweit, 122 
 
 Kramaf, 219, 267, 288, 374 
 
 Kriegsbrauch, 81 
 
 Kriiani6, 210, 211 
 
 Kiihlmann, Herr v., 151, 155 
 
 Lammasch, Dr., 168, 173 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 88 
 
 Lansing, Mr., 304 
 
 League of Nations, 138, 179, 184, 186- 
 
 187, 231, 243, 275, 279, 307, 317, 
 
 324, 343 
 Ledochowski, Count, 173 
 Lemberg (Lvov), 288, 373, 376 
 Lenin, 226, 240, 245 
 Leopold I., 336 
 Levski, 351 
 Libumia, 319 
 Lille, 203 
 Lissa, 21 
 Lithuania, 366 
 Lloyd George, Mr.. 50, 132, 163, 172, 
 
 192 
 London, Treaty of (1839), 149 
 Treaty of (1913), 95 
 
398 
 
 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Lundon, Treaty of (1915), 102, 103, 
 107, 298 sqq., 312, 320 
 Pact of (1914), 126, 231 
 Lov6en, Mt„ 21, 196 
 LubUn, Union of, 366 
 Lule Burgaa, 360 
 Lusatian Sorbs, 294, 295 
 Lussin island, 315 
 Luther, 256 
 
 Liitzow, Count, 255, 257 
 Luxemburg, 123, 188 
 
 Macchio, Baron, 7 
 
 Macedonia, 42, 108, 109, 113, 349, 
 
 362 
 Mackensen, Marshal, 192, 197, 204 
 Magyar oligarchy, 5, 25, 31, 52, 143, 
 
 176, 223 
 Magyarisation, 27, 31, 32, 287, 328 
 Mahmud Shevket Pasha, 42 
 Manchester Guardian, 298 
 IVIarch river, 280 
 Maros river, 337 
 Masaryk, President, x, 7, 8, 266, 273, 
 
 279, 288, 374, 379, 384, 387-91 
 Mazeppa, 368 
 Mazzini, 16, 144, 226, 228 
 Meinl, Herr, 173 
 Meissner, Alfred, 26 
 Memorandum Trial, 33, 330 
 Mensdorff, Count, 20, 157, 158 
 Methodius, St., 38, 210, 255, 280 
 Metz, 123 
 Mignet, 232 
 Mian, King, 354 
 MUlerand, M., 116 
 ]Mi§i6, Voivode, 198, 302 
 Mitteleuropa, 181, 363 
 Mohammed 11., 350 
 Monastir, 205, 362 
 Montenegro, 71 
 Montenuovo, Prince, 9 
 Montlong, Herr von, 172 
 Moravia, 276 
 Moscalophils, 375, 376 
 Mozambique, 123 
 
 Napoleon I., 251 
 NavSti6, George, 18 
 Nation, 65 
 National Service, 79 
 
 Nationalities, Law of, 32 , 
 
 Naumann, F., 363 
 
 Nazim Pasha, 42 
 
 Neoslavism, 219 
 
 Nestor, 209 
 
 Neue Freie Presse, 6, 90, 383 
 
 New Europe, ix, 298 
 
 Nicholas L, 369 
 
 Nicolson, Sir A., 88 
 
 Nietzsche, 227 
 
 Nig, 363 
 
 Nitra, 255, 283 
 
 Novi List, 379, 380 
 
 Obrenovi6 dynasty, 13 
 Oderberg railway, 293 
 Orbini, 213 
 Orlando, Signor, 304 
 Orthodox Church, 38, 255 
 Ottokar, King, 252 
 
 Paar, Count, 9 
 
 Palacky, F., 68, 217, 218, 255, 258, 
 
 260, 280 
 Palestine, 43, 191 
 
 Pangermanism, 133, 145, 207, 236, 277 
 Panslav Congress, 26, 218, 262 
 Panslavism, 74, 144, 207 sqq. 
 Pan-Turanianism, 348 * 
 
 Pa§i6, Mr., 8, 9, 304 
 Perejaslavl, Treaty of, 367 
 Peter, King, 10 
 Peter the Great, 214 
 Petkov, 358 
 Phanar, 38 
 Pig War, 10 
 Pitt, W., 149 
 Planka, Cape, 103, 300 
 Plehanov, 230 
 Poincare, M., 172 
 Poland, 22, 70, 76, 83, 126, 134, 141, 
 
 177, 188, 211, 219, 223, 292, 368 
 Poltava, 368 
 Popovici, Aurel, 37 
 Portugal, 97 
 Posen, 188 
 Potiorek, Gen., 196 
 Potocki, Count, 374 
 Prague University, 253 
 Pressburg (Bratislava), 281 
 Princip, murderer, 4 
 
INDEX 
 
 399 
 
 Prochaska Affair, 8 
 Prussia, 22, 43, 81, 133 
 Pushkin, 214 
 
 Quamero, 319 
 
 Badoslavov, Mr., 109, 359 
 Ragusa (Dubrovnik), 318, 378 
 Bakosi, Mr., 329 
 Rakovski, George, 351 
 Raaputin, 239 
 Ratziu, Dr., 33, 330 
 Rauch, Baron, 6, 13, 382 
 Reichspost, 170 
 Renner, Dr. Carl, 37 
 Reventlow, Count, 122 
 .Revertera, Count, 171 
 Revolution, Russian, 233, 247 
 ilieger, 218, 259 
 Roberts, Lord, 78 
 Robertson, Sir W., 195 
 Rohxbach, Paul, 122 
 Rome, Pact of (1918), 304, 307-8 
 Ronmania, 67, 96, 196-7, 205 
 Roumanians of Hungary, 26, 36, 190, 
 196, 326-43 
 of Serbia, 343 
 Rudolf, Crown Prince, 377 
 Rupprecht, Crown Prince, 76 
 Russia, 67, 85, 88, 134, 156 
 Russo-Turkisli War, 53 
 Ruthenes of Hungary, 285-9 
 
 Sabatier. M. Paul, 82 
 
 Safarik, P. J., 217, 260, 280 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, 96 
 
 Salonica, 12, 20, 73, 107, 115, 118, 196, 
 
 200-206 
 Salvemini, Prof., 300, 323 
 Sandjak, 20 
 San Stefano, 353 
 Sarajevo Murder, 1 sqq. 
 Sarrail, Gen., 202 
 Savov, Gen.^ 361 
 Sazonov, Mr., 103 
 Scheldt river, 73 
 Schmerhng, A. von, 28 
 Schiitt, Danube island, 285 
 Secret Treaties, 298 sqq., 312, 320, 
 
 344-5 
 Seidler, Dr. von, 51, 66 
 
 §ev6enko, Taraa, 212, 370 
 
 Shfiguna, Archbishop, 329 
 
 Shemshi Pasha, 42 
 
 Silesia, 277, 291 
 
 Single Front, 128 
 
 Sixtus of Parma, 166, 169 
 
 Skoplje, 115 
 
 Skoda works, 263 
 
 Slavonia, 156 
 
 Slovaks, 26, 177, 209, 280 sqq., 393 
 
 Slovenes, 14, 56, 298 
 
 Smetana, 262 
 
 Smuts, Gen., 157, 163, 172 
 
 Smyrna, 111 • 
 
 Social Reform, 153 
 
 Sofia, Santa, 66, 143, 357, 361 
 
 Soloviev, v., 216 
 
 Sonnino, Baron, 300, 302, 304 
 
 Sore], Albert, 68 
 
 South African War, 87, 96 
 
 Spalajkovi6, Dr., 18 
 
 Spalato (SpUt), 316 
 
 Stambulov, 354-5 
 
 Statistics, Magyar, 281 
 
 Steed, Mr. H. W., x, 59, 382 
 
 Stefanik, General, 389-94 
 
 Stolypin, 372 
 
 Stiirgkh, Count, 10 
 
 Suez Canal, 117 
 
 Supilo, Frano, 299, 377-88 
 
 Supplex Libellus, 26, 327 
 
 SuSak, 311 
 
 Suvla Bay, 110 
 
 Svatopluk, 280 
 
 Syfiinski, M., 374 
 
 Syria, 122, 191 
 
 Sz6ch6nyi, Count, 27 
 
 Szeged, 242 
 
 Szekelys, 326 
 
 Sz6I], K, 331 
 
 Szemere, Dr., 172 
 
 Szeptycki, Archbishop, 75, 212, 373 
 
 Szlachta, Pohsh, 374 
 
 TaafEe, Count, 68 
 Taborites, 258 
 Taine, 225 
 Talaat Pasha, 41 
 Tannenberg, 257 
 Tamowski, Count, 361 
 Tauern Railway, 314 
 
400 
 
 EUROPE IN THE MELTING-POT 
 
 Temesvar, 335 
 
 Tennyson, 138, 146 
 
 Teschen, 292 
 
 Timor, 97 
 
 Tirol, 298, 310 
 
 Tirpitz, Admiral, 88 
 
 Tisza, Count, 5, 10, 21, 34, 54, 166, 
 
 269, 330 
 Tisza river, 290, 336 
 Torontal, 340 
 Torre, Signor, 303, 325 
 Trcitschke, 51, 133 
 Trentino, 71, 100 
 Trepov, Mr., 129 
 Trieste, 71, 72, 140, 310, 313 
 Triple Alliance, 88 
 Tripoli, 94 
 Ti'oppau, 292 
 Trotzki, 55, 229 
 Trubetskoi, Prince, 16 
 Triimbi6, Dr., 303, 306, 325, 381, 385 
 
 Uganda, 123 
 
 Ugro-Russians, 288 
 
 Ukraine, 49, 57, 177, 212, 230, 236, 
 
 365-76 
 Uniates, 75, 103, 220, 287, 369, 
 
 375 
 Union and Progress Committee, 41 
 U^horod, 285 
 
 VaJona, 191 
 
 Valyi, Mr., 172 
 
 Varflar valley, 12, 107, 108, 113 
 
 Va3i6 trial, 18 
 
 Vatican, 16, 75 
 Vclbuid, 349 
 Venelin, 351 
 Venezia GiuUa, 313 
 Venizelos, Mr., Ill, 112, 115 
 Verdun, 204 
 Vidin, 115 
 
 Vienna, Congress of, 26, 50, 61, 139, 
 UI 
 Czechs in, 294 
 Vistula valley, 73 
 Viviani, M., 116 
 Vlara Pass, 293 
 
 Wekerle, Dr., 382 
 
 Weser Zeitung, 297 
 
 Westemism, 201 
 
 White^Mountain, 258 
 
 Wilhelmstraase, 90, 94 
 
 WiUiara II., 5, 78, 81, 87, 99, 100, 146, 
 
 166, 383 
 Wilson, President, 50, 137, 169, 178, 
 
 184, 243, 307, 324 
 Windsor Treaty, 98, 102 
 WyclifFe, 254 
 
 Young Turks, 6, 10, 40 
 
 Zanzibar, 123 
 
 Zara (Zadar), 13, 298, 321, 381 
 
 Zay, Count, 27 
 
 Zilina, 294 
 
 Zita, "Empress, 166 
 
 Zivkovic, Gen., 9 
 
 Ziika, 257 
 
 THE END 
 
 Prnttcd by R. & R. Ci.akic, Limited, Edinlnirgh. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 ROUMANIA AND THE GREAT WAR 
 
 With Map. 2s. net. 1915. (Constable & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 ATHENAEUM. — "Is for the serious student, who will not despise it for its 
 brevity." 
 
 GLOBE. — " A strong, thoughtful essay by a writt^r who knows his subject so 
 thoroughly that authority is evident in e\ eiy line.' 
 
 PUNCH. — *' My advice is get a wet towel and a good map and read this memor- 
 andum." 
 
 SPECTATOli.—" yir. Seton-\Valsnn's well-informed and statesmanlike book," 
 
 ECONOMIST.—" Singularly full of interesting matter." 
 
 THE BALKANS, ITALY AND THE 
 
 ADRIATIC 
 
 With 2 ]\[ai.s. 2nd Edition. Is. net. 1915. 
 (J. Nisl.et & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 MORNING POuS'2'.— "There is tonic stuff in Dr. Se ton -Watson's brilliant and 
 closely reasoned pamphlet." 
 
 DAILY iV^H^.S.— " This illuminatin- pamphlet." 
 
 GERMAN, SLAV AND MAGYAR 
 
 With 2 Maps. 2s. 6d. net. 1916. (Williams & Norgate.) 
 
 TIMES. — "His present volume is as sound in learning and intention as his 
 previous works." 
 
 OBSERVER. — "There is no current writer to whom a wider or more substantial 
 debt falls to be acknowledged." 
 
 TRUTH.— " A valuable contribution to the history of the Great War." 
 
 NEW STATESMAN.— "■ He i.s in the best sense of the word an authority on his 
 subject : all his good qualities have gone to the making of his present book." 
 
 CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.—" His facts and recommendations deserve careful 
 study, not only by the private citizen, but by the handful of men who will in due 
 course be called upon to rebuild a ruined Europe." 
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALITY IN 
 THE BALKANS 
 
 With 4 Maps. lOs. 6d. net. 1917. (Constable & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 TIMES. — " We have in the concluding chapters a really critical account of an 
 exceptionally important phase in the modem history of the Eastern Question." 
 
 GLASGOW HERALD.— "Has rendered a very great service in putting his re- 
 searches well within the grasp of the average man." 
 
 WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—" A masterful survey of the two Balkan wars." 
 
 NEW STATESMAN. — " His work answers the hii,'lip^ I scientific requirements 
 and is free of prejudice and passion." 
 
 SPECTATOR. — "Should be read by all who wisli to understand the essence of 
 the Balkan problem." 
 
 1 • 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 RACIAL PROBLEMS IN HUNGARY 
 
 With 42 lllustratious and Map/ 1908. 16s.net. 
 
 EDINBURGH REVIEW. — "A serious, and we must at once admit, 
 a convincing indictment of the whole policy of the dominant Magyars 
 toward the subordinate races." 
 
 QUARTERLY nEVJEW.—" Ris method is to leave nothing un- 
 proved, but to give chapter and verse for every assertion, so far as possible 
 from Hungarian and official sources." 
 
 SPEQTA TOR—' ' Extraordinarily documente." 
 
 NA TION. — ' ' His T)ook will at once take rank as the standard authority 
 on this immensely important subject." 
 
 TIMES. — "This book is a sincere and courageous attempt to illuminate 
 an obscure corner of Europe and to do justice to one of the most gifted 
 and interesting of Slav races. No student of Hungarian politics, and no 
 writer on Austro- Hungarian affairs, can afford to ignore it, for it rests on 
 sound historical knowledge such as is rarely acquired by foreigners." 
 
 THE SOUTHERN SLAV QUESTION 
 
 1911. 12s. 6d. net. (Constable & Co.) 
 
 Enlarged and Eevised German Edition. 1913. 14 Mk. 
 
 TIMES. — "An historical document, the fruit of close study and of 
 keen observation of men and things on the spot." 
 
 MORNING POST.— ''It is to his criticism that the destruction of 
 the Kossutbist idol of the 'fifties and 'sixties is due. In this volume he 
 has little difficulty in showing that the reign of Ma.gy&.T absolutism is as 
 complete in Croatia-Slavonia as in Hungary proper, and with less justifi- 
 cation." 
 
 ECONOMIST. — "This new work will at once take rank as a classic on 
 one of the most fascinating problems of modern politics." 
 
 CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.— '' No living Englishman has given 
 such close attention to the internal politics of the Dual Monarchy, and no 
 one has done so much to render them intelligible. His latest book is in 
 some ways even more important than its predecessors, for it is the first de- 
 tailed study in our language of the Croatian problem. ... A real con- 
 tribution to contemporary history." 
 
 NATION. — "This new volume will add if possible to an already 
 established reputation. It is a model of what the handling of a vexed and 
 difficult problem in contemporary history should be, " 
 
 LONDON: CONSTABLE & CO., LTD. 
 
 2 
 
THE WAR 
 
 AND 
 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 BY 
 
 E. W. SETON- WATSON, D.Litt., J. DOVER WILSON, 
 ALFRED E. ZIMMERN, and ARTHUR GREENWOOD. 
 
 Grown Svo. 3s. net. 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 Times. — '' The essays are of high quality. They go more fully aud 
 deeply into the underlying problems of the war than most of the 
 pamphlets and books which have appeared in such profusion." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. — "A volume of first-rate value." 
 
 Contemporary Review. — "A most instructive and suggestive 
 book." 
 
 English Review. — ''Indispensable to all who would understand 
 the position of European affairs to-day." 
 
 Outlook. — "No more suggestive or thoughtful book dealing with 
 the war . . . has, we believe, yet been issued to the public." 
 
 2\ation. — "An admirable volume." 
 
 New Statesman. — "Far the ablest and fullest statement that has 
 yet been published of the problems of national and international 
 politics raised by the war. " 
 
 Church Quarterly Review. — "Written with knowledge and in- 
 sight." 
 
 Guardian. — " A very good book." 
 
 Catholic Times. — "A book well worth returning to." 
 
 Christian Commonwealth. — "A very full and competent discussion 
 of the great issues of democracy and nationality which will thrust 
 themselves forward for determination when the war is over." 
 
THE WAR AND DEMOCRACY -Continued, 
 
 IVorld. — "Altogether an admirable book." 
 
 Truth. — " Vivid aud illuminating essays." 
 
 Justice. — "The book of the moment." 
 
 New Witness. — "The bargain book of the war . . . for freshness 
 of presentation an^ originality of substance and interest." 
 
 Near East, — "A masterly survey of the lines on which peace can 
 be established." 
 
 Sunday Times. — "One of the most thoughtful and reasonable 
 books which have been issued by an English firm on the subject of 
 the war." 
 
 Daily Citizen. — "This book, with its clear, careful, and scholarly 
 writing, is one that challenges the attention *of all thoughtful 
 people." 
 
 Birmingham Post. — "One of the most illuminating treatises which 
 has yet been published." 
 
 Liverpool Daily Post.— ^' It may safely be assumed that the book 
 will be in demand long after the close of the great struggle." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. — "A valuable addition to the discussion of the 
 war in its political aspects." 
 
 Leicester Pioneer. — *' One of the simplest as well as one of the most 
 learned and scholarly books that have been written on the war." 
 
 Aberdeen Free Press. — " Undoubtedly one of the best war books." 
 
 Northern Whig. — "One of the most valuable little books yet pro- 
 duced by the war." 
 
 Times of India.—'' We warmly commend this little book. In aim, 
 scope and execution it is alike admirable." 
 
 Oxford J/af/arme.— "Up-to-date, well written, . . . will better 
 repay the reader than any other book on the war." 
 
 Cambridge Peview. — ''We could wish it might be very widely 
 studied, as a wise, well-informed and sympathetic treatment of what 
 it concerns us all to know and to understand." 
 
 Railway Revieiv. — "The best and most comprehensive book, and 
 the one which will remain as a classic when most of the evanescent 
 pamphlets are remembered no more. . . . The careful reading of this 
 little volume will do more to create a sound public opinion on foreign 
 policy, and what is and is not possible after the war, than any other 
 work we know." 
 
 Educational Times. — '' We confidently recommend this book to 
 teachers who wish to read a well-informed, impartial and clear state- 
 ment of modern tendencies." 
 
 LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.