®l|^ Intui^rsttg of 
 Suffaln lulkttn 
 
 College of Arts and Sciences 
 
 SUBJECT PEOPLES 
 UNDER THE TEUTONS 
 
 BUFFALO 
 
 Published January, April, July and October of Each Year 
 
 VOL. VI. No. 3 : JULY 1918 
 
 Re-entered as Second-class matter Nov. 28, 1917, at the Post Office at 
 Buffalo, New York, under the Act of August 24, 1912 
 
 Wwt^ph 
 
Single copies of this bulletin (like 
 the others of the series), are free to the 
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 Those applying for a copy by mail 
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 — Committee on Publications 
 
Subject Peoples Under the Teutons 
 
 JULIAN PARK 
 
 BUFFALO, N. Y. 
 
 COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
 UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO 
 
 Copyright, 1918, by Julian Park 
 
^6 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 These essays, designed in popular form to serve 
 only as introduction to the vast subject here presented, 
 first saw the light in the Buffalo Sunday Express, from 
 which, after revision, they are reprinted. Many au- 
 thorities (mentioned in the bibliography) have been 
 drawn upon. The essays provided material for dis- 
 cussion during the spring term in the class in con- 
 temporary European history, and to the friendly com- 
 ments of the members of Histor^^ 9 their publication 
 in this form is partly due. Their original conception, 
 however, owes itself to the conviction, or hope, of the 
 truth of the saying "They also serve who only stand 
 and teach.-' 
 
 ©aA50jf080 
 JUL -I 1918 
 
SUBJECT PEOPLES UNDER THE TEUTONS 
 
 There are at least six races of considerable numerical importance which 
 are living against their will under Teutonic domination. He who can 
 answer the question of what is to become of them holds in his hand the 
 key of world peace. Thus it becomes distinctly worth while to examine 
 briefly into the question of how Germany or Austria succeeded in acquiring 
 these large alien elements, how well they have been assimilated, and what 
 problems they will present when the moment comes to make an equitable 
 disposition of them around the conference table. Without a doubt the 
 most important practical business of that conference will be the revision 
 of the map of Europe along the lines of nationality. 
 
 The principle of nationality is one of those vague generalities with 
 which the practice of diplomacy so formidably bristles. They are not 
 mere phrases, however, these high-sounding mouthfuls like "balance of 
 power," "extra-territoriality," and "principle of nationality." Our con- 
 ception of their exact meanings may be vague, but that is not their fault; 
 and the most important of all — because the most human — is this principle 
 of nationality. We know what nationality is, but do we fully realize all 
 the factors which compose it? A common countrj^ is, of course, the first 
 requisite. Others most commonly found are a common religion; a common 
 language — especially if it has given birth to a literature; and, something 
 most impalpable but none the less compelling, a common tradition or sense 
 of memories shared from the past. Nationality is an instinct and cannot 
 be exactly defined. It is the recognition as kinsmen of those who were 
 deemed strangers. It is the apotheosis of family feeling and begets a 
 resolve never again to separate. It leads to the founding of a polity on a 
 natural basis independent of a monarch or a state, though not in any sense 
 hostile to them. It is much more than a political contract — it is a union 
 of hearts; once made, never unmade. 
 
 Now in the case of every one of these six major races it is evident that 
 if the principle of nationality is to be respected reunion must take place 
 between the ravished jieoples and their fatherland. But why do we pick on 
 the Germans as the chief offenders? Surely if this principle is correct, 
 Ireland, Corsica and many colonies should be restored to their native peo- 
 ples. There is some abstract justice in this viewpoint, but native sentiment, 
 even in Ireland, is by no means unanimous on the point, and it happens, 
 of course, that feeling among the Germanized states is almost entirely 
 
unanimous. After all, the criterion should be contentment. If Canada and 
 Algiers and the Philippines are content to live under the three most gene- 
 rous and successful colonizers of the world, who will gainsay their right? 
 But it happens that, since Germany and Austria-Hungary have governed 
 their subjects in just such a way as we would expect of nations whose war 
 methods we know all too well,* their alien populations are restless and 
 discontented when not openly rebellious. 
 
 * A. J. Toynbee: The German Terror in Belgium, N. Y., 1917; The German Terror in 
 France, N. T., 1917. 
 
 J. H. Morgan: German Atrocities, N. Y., 1917. 
 
 N. D. Hillis: German Atrocities, N. Y., 1918. 
 
 Committee on Public Information, Washington: German War Practices. 
 
I 
 
 THE DANES 
 
 We begin, however, with a race whose lot as German subjects for the 
 last fifty years has been probably more comfortable than that of the others. 
 XumericalW, the Danes in Germany are least important; economically, 
 they no doubt count for less. AMiy then, are they here given the place of 
 honor? Because their absorption took place by methods which illustrate 
 superbly well that kind of international dealing which we have come to 
 call secret diplomacy, and not only secret (for much diplomac}^ cannot and 
 should not be divulged), but sinister, underhanded, in other words Bis- 
 marckian. 
 
 Bismarck had come to power in 1862, and only a year was necessary 
 to prove his peculiar fitness for the oflfice of prime minister. Bismarck's 
 royal master himself had been on the throne for only four of the thirty 
 years of his eventful reign. William I spoke of himself as an old man, 
 for he was sixty years of age, but could he have looked into the future he 
 would have realized that he stood upon the threshold of a new epoch. At 
 the outset the soldier-king found himself confronted with a situation in the 
 army which he believed full of danger for Prussia, and he promptly sub- 
 mitted to Parliament a plan for army reforms, by which universal mili- 
 tary service would have been rigorously enforced. But the creation of new 
 regiments would have involved a considerable increase in the budget, to 
 which the lower house was unalterabl}^ opposed. Many deputies whispered 
 that the object of the new regiments was to supply young nobles with posi- 
 tions as officers. 
 
 A deadlock ensued. William was obdurate, not only because it was now 
 a matter of personal pride not to give in, but because he believed that 
 Prussia's destiny depended on her army. He thought of abdicating, but 
 never of abandoning the reform. Never did ruler have greater need of a 
 strong unscrupulous aid to fight his battles for him in Parliament. 
 
 "I will rather perish with the king," Bismarck said, "than forsake your 
 majesty in the struggle with parliamentary government." Such was the 
 man, more Tory than the Tories, who undertook the task of ministerial 
 government without a majority in Parliament, without a budget, without a 
 program. Had he been driven by the majorities against him to resign, had 
 the king abdicated and the army consequently been reduced, German unity 
 would have been indefinitely postponed. His remedy for the military situa- 
 tion was simplicity itself. Year after year the lower house voted against 
 
the budget, supported by the voters, but the upper house voted for it, and 
 the king acted as if this made it legal. Parliamentary government became 
 a farce. 
 
 Resplendent as an army, especially a Prussian army, may be in appear- 
 ance, parading and guard-mounting is not the chief end of its existence. 
 This Bismarck was to prove three times during the next eight years, each 
 time against a stronger adversary. The evolution of a great unified German 
 state out of the chaos of twenty-five independent kingdoms, grand duchies, 
 duchies, free cities, and what not, could only be achieved, he held, by war. 
 And he would need, of course, to show that they were wars not of ag- 
 gression. 
 
 The origin of the difficulty of which he took advantage in 1863 was 
 sufficiently complicated by itself without the added mystery with which 
 Bismarck knew so skilfully how to surround it. Lord Palmerston, British 
 prime minister from 1855 to 1865, once said: "Only three persons ever 
 understood the Schleswig-Holstein affair; one was dead, one crazy, and he 
 himself (the third) had forgotten what it was all about." 
 
 Despite this encouragement, it is necessary for us to have the barest 
 outline of the matter in order to understand the peculiar nature of Bis- 
 marck's diplomacy. In the Danish peninsula were tAvo duchies, Schleswig 
 and Hoist ein, which, though largely peopled by Germans, were joined in a 
 personal union under the Danish king. Holstein was also a member of 
 the Germanic Confederation, the union which then linked Prussia, Austria, 
 and all the other Teutonic states so loosely that friction was bound ulti- 
 mately to develop, even without the guiding hand of Bismarck. But the 
 duchies' only relation to Denmark was that a duke of Schleswig and Hol- 
 stein had become King of Denmark, just an elector of Hanover had become 
 King of England. The Danes in the duchies (numbering in Schleswig 
 about 150,000, to 1^75,000 Germans, and in Holstein a much smaller minority) 
 wanted to make the union a real one. But the King of Denmark sat as 
 Duke of Holstein in the Diet of the Confederation — which erected the ques- 
 tion into an issue interesting all Teutons. Would they allow Germans to 
 be annexed to a foreign country outright? So strong was the feeling and 
 on such valid grounds did it rest, that the Diet orderd an army dispatched 
 to prevent the annexation. Bismarck persuaded Austria, however, that the 
 two leading members of the Confederation should handle the matter alone, 
 to which Austria agreed. With equanimity Denmark saw the question thus 
 narrowed, trusting that antagonism and jealousy would develop between 
 the two states in time to save her. It did not, however, for Bismarck re- 
 
served that for the future. A characteristically Prussian ultimatum was 
 sent, demanding that the King of Denmark withdraw the act of annexa- 
 tion within forty-eight hours. 
 
 "I felt all right about it," he told Count Beust later; "I had assured 
 myself that the Danes would not give in. I had led them to think that 
 England would support them, though I knew this was not the case." He 
 had, however, even a surer guarantee than this : the ultimatum was couched 
 in such a form that even if he would, the king could not comply with it. 
 The king could not withdraw the act without Parliament's consent. But 
 Parliament had just been dissolved, and a new one could not by any possi- 
 bility be elected and convened within two days. The similarity of this 
 situation to that at Belgrade during the last days of July, 1914, will be 
 instantly apparent. Then Lord Wodehouse, playing the role that Sir 
 Edward Grey and Sir Edward Goschen played so valiantly four years ago, 
 requested that at least more time be allowed. Bismarck, of course, refused 
 to listen. 
 
 The issue of such a war could not long be doubtful, and the Austro- 
 Prussian invaders made short shrift of their weak opponent. The natural 
 sequel of a war so conceived was a bitter quarrel between the victors over 
 the disposition of the spoils, but that is a matter not immediately concerning 
 the subject. The ultimate issue, of course, of that war (as brief as the 
 Danish struggle) was to secure for Prussia alone the duchies, with other 
 rich spoil from the Hapsburg monarchy, and to settle once and for all the 
 question of hegemony among German-speaking peoples. 
 
 Bismarck's purposes in all this were many, beside the obvious one, 
 which he trumpeted to the world, of preventing Germans from becoming 
 Danes. The duchies were wealthy, not only agriculturally but politi- 
 cally- — in the sense that they (with Denmark) separate one of the two 
 German coast lines from the other; but with that part of the peninsula in 
 Prussian hands, a canal at Kiel could be constructed so as to enable the 
 North Sea and the Baltic fleets to come to each other's help. That item — 
 important as it was— had no more value, however, than the certainty in 
 Bismarck's mind that he could easily provoke Austria into dissatisfaction 
 at the settlement of the Danish question which would lead to a second war 
 — a war which would be so much more serious than the other affair as to 
 rally her neighbors to Prussia's help. 
 
 After the Danish war about 50,000 Danes migrated to the fatherland 
 from Schleswig, pending the referendum which w\as to restore their country 
 to them. But the plebiscite never came. Prussia had never, of course, the 
 
 7 
 
slightest intention of surrendering an inch of the territory she had con- 
 quered. The European countries had troubles of their own of sufficient 
 gravity to turn their eyes conveniently away from a few thousand Danes; 
 and it was easy to excuse themselves by reminding each other that, after 
 all, the Danes had brought their retribution upon themselves. 
 
 That pledge of a referendum was given to Austria at the Treaty of 
 Prague, ending the Seven Weeks' War in 1866, but Austria waived its en- 
 forcement in 1878, just before she joined Germany in the alliance which was 
 enlarged in 1882 by the admission of Italy and became the Triple Alliance. 
 Denmark, indeed, agreed to condone the non-observance of the plebiscite 
 provision when several years ago she secured a legal status for the Danish 
 inhabitants of the lost duchy, but it was a condonation wrested from her 
 by the force of circumstances and does not rectif)^ Prussia's action. Here, 
 as in the case of Alsace, it remains true that there is no such thing as a 
 statute of limitations for honest men and honest states. 
 
 Despite a large emigration, in 1905 of the 148,000 inhabitants of North 
 Schleswig 139,000 spoke Danish. In the Eeichstag the Danish delegation 
 is small but aggressive, voting regularly against national measures, most 
 frequently with the Catholic Centre, and occasionally with the Social 
 Democrats. The question of the rival nationalities in Schleswig, like that 
 in Poland and Alsace, remained a source of weakness and trouble within 
 the frontiers of the German empire. 
 
II 
 
 THE FRENCH 
 
 Having seen in briefest outline tlie consequences in terms of human lives 
 and happiness of Bismarck's first two wars, we come now to the conclusion 
 of that triumphal trilogy. The brief struggles with Denmark (1864) and 
 with Austria (186G) left the work of completing the German structure 
 unfinished. Thej^ have given it its character, how^ever, and it remained 
 for the master-builder but to continue the superstructure in the same design 
 as the foundation. 
 
 Why was it that he found his task relatively so easy? Because of the 
 lack of competition in his own particular field. Cavour, the man whose 
 work in unifying the Italian people overcame obstacles even greater than 
 Bismarck's, was now dead. In French diplomacy it was a particularly 
 unfortunate period, since the masters of statecraft — Thiers, Gambetta, 
 Ferry — being Republicans, suffered eclipse under Napoleon's benevolent des- 
 potism. England, to be sure, had such statesmen as Clarendon and Glad- 
 stone, though Palmerston was lately dead ; yet foresight such as is given to 
 but one or two men in a century was necessary if England was to recognize 
 the growing danger to her in the increase of Prussian powder. Her fears 
 envisaged either Russia — where she anticipated clashes over her possessions 
 in the Far East; or France — whose rivalry as a commercial and colonizing 
 power seemed at the moment most to be feared. On Prussia she looked 
 sympathetically and realized her mistaken policy only when it was too late. 
 Accordingly Bismarck felt sufficiently free from interference. 
 
 It is outside the scope of this series to detail the way in which he 
 brought on the reckoning with France. A naive English correspondent with 
 the Prussian army one day said to him: "You must be very angry with 
 those Frenchmen who have forced you into this war." "Angry!" he re- 
 torted; "why, it was I who forced them to fight." And it was by a device 
 fully in keeping with the Bismarckian tradition — the famous forged tele- 
 gram of Ems — that he compelled France, if she would retain her self- 
 respect, to accept the gauge. 
 
 The war, declared by Paris on July 15, 1870, lasted until February- 2G, 
 1871. France, though no better prepared than Austria, had sustained a far 
 more heroic struggle, but was doomed from the start. We have no space 
 for any detailed analysis of the causes and the progress of that war; but 
 the treaty which brought it to an end, being the starting point of the Alsa- 
 
tian question, must iioav concern us. That Treat}- of Frankfort, by which 
 Alsace and nearly a half of Lorraine became German, is a turning point of 
 modern history. Was this country originally German or French? The 
 answer depends to some degree on the nationality, or sympathy, of the 
 questioner, for it may be twisted one way or the other by casuistry. But 
 the inhabitants themselves asserted that thej^ were French, and that the 
 document which pretended to transfer them was from the start, and would 
 forever remain, null and void. 
 
 When you ask history for the answer you are taken back into the dark 
 ages. Caesar found a population not Teutonic, but Celtic. Naturally with 
 the Celtic-Roman population some German elements were mingled, but in 
 what proportion it would be impossible to say. Teutonic invasions con- 
 tinued during centuries, after Rome ceased to have strength enough to 
 defend the frontiers of Gaul; and with the fifth century the boasted ram- 
 parts of her power, the Rhine and the Danube, gave way. Tribe after tribe 
 came, seeking a warmer, more congenial place in the sun. During the 
 middle ages the district emerges as separate parts of the Holy Roman Em- 
 pire, that half -phantasmal institution (which one historian has charac- 
 terized as neither holy, nor Roman, nor empire) existing until Napoleon I 
 did away with its peculiar life. It was really a German empire with vague 
 pretensions to the control of Italy. But it was not the father of the Ger- 
 man empire of today — though it may satisfy the historic sense of modern 
 Germans (as Professor Hazen puts it) to see in the Hohenzollerns inheri- 
 tors of the secular traditions of the Hohenstauffen and the Hapsburgs. 
 Within the Holy Roman Empire were states of every rank and grade, of 
 every degree of weakness and strength. Nothing was imj)ressive but its 
 outward pomp. 
 
 In the final breakup of the dynasty of which Charlemagne was the 
 most illustrious member, in the last years of the tenth century (when it was 
 ousted by the Capetian dynasty) Alsace and Lorraine were lost to the king- 
 dom that came to be known as France and were drawn and held within the 
 orbit of the old Germanic empire. Each was then lacking in the political 
 and geographical unity with which we associate them today. Their history 
 is a collection of many local histories. The Hapsburg emperors possessed 
 certain family domains; petty German princes others; there were ten free 
 imperial cities; bishoprics, baronies, etc. Alsatians fought ceaseless local 
 wars. 
 
 By the Treaty of Westphalia, ending in 1648 the terrible Thirty Years' 
 War, the emperor ceded to France his rights in Alsace, and gradually, by 
 
methods many of which it is impossible to condone, she incorporated the 
 whole. Lorraine, more homogeneous, was now a duchj^ which had become, 
 through money payments, practically independent of the empire. In 1736 
 it was given to Stanislaus Leszcynski, dethroned king of Poland, for the 
 duke's son was about to marry the future empress, and France could not 
 admit the union of Lorraine with the empire. This compensation for the 
 loss of his kingdom was given to Stanislaus on condition that at his death 
 it should pass to the crown of France, the ex-king being father-in-law to 
 Louis XV. Wlien Stanislaus died, in 1766, Lorraine became French in 
 name as she had been in fact. 
 
 When the great revolution came the people of both Alsace and Lorraine 
 had become so easily and thoroughly Gallicized that they were among the 
 most eager to salute the new day, without exercising the violence attending 
 its claw^n in the interior of France. The greatest hymn of liberty, the 
 Marsaillaise, was composed in Strasbourg, though it was sung by volunteers 
 marching up to Paris from Marseilles. Alsatian sons flocked into the 
 volunteer armies, and some of them became famous generals, such as Keller- 
 mann and Kleber; Marshal Ney was a son of Metz. In 1870 the record of 
 the Alsatians and Lorrainers, their eagerness to give the last full measure 
 of devotion when their land was invaded, is a sufficient commentary on the 
 German assertion that they were Germans, yearning for release. 
 
 The conquered people had but one privilege; they were to have until 
 October 1, 1872, to decide, individually, whether they would preserve their 
 French citizenship or become German subjects. Those who chose the former 
 must have withdrawn by that day and established themselves in France. 
 Pathetic and heartrending were the distress and sorrow that accompanied 
 the exodus, of a people attached bj' all the ties of affection and interest to 
 their native and ancestral fields and villages. 
 
 By the final day allowed about 400,000 Alsatians and 50,000 Lorrainers 
 had chosen for France. Thousands came to this country. Others repro- 
 duced, with more or less success, somewhere in France the types of their 
 old villages, givmg them the old names, preserving the old physiognomy. 
 
 What was the status, political and human, of those who thought it their 
 duty to remain, either because they were old, or could not dispose of their 
 property, or were rooted to it by sentiment even when it ceased to be French, 
 or were determined to contest every step in the process of Germanization 
 until the day of deliverance? Although the annexation was regarded by 
 the Germans not as a conquest but as a recovery of that wliich was theirs, 
 nevertheless the provinces have been treated as conquered territory, based 
 
on the principle that they were to be ruled without their consent. They 
 have constituted an imperial territory, a Eeichsland, which, though it 
 should belong in common to the twenty-five states forming the empire, 
 should not, like the others, be a self-governing state, but should be governed 
 in the name of the empire by the King of Prussia. It would be easy with 
 such a form of government to avoid granting any political rights to the 
 Alsatians and Lorrainers; moreover, it would make all the members of the 
 confederation accomplices in the dismemberment of France, and conse- 
 quently guardians of the conquest. 
 
 Alsace — German in great part by race and almost wholly by language,* 
 although there has grown up a curious patois — remained doggedly French 
 in spirit, notwithstanding all that German police domination could do, be- 
 cause Alsace for two hundred years had been French. The French imprint 
 upon Alsace had been originally, of course, a foreign one: once stamped, it 
 was never forgotten, and what Germans could with historical logic claim 
 to be a return to German rule never effaced it. The paradox was seen of 
 the people of Mulhausen, which is a German name that means something, 
 persisting in calling themselves the people of Mulhouse, which in French 
 is a couple of meaningless syllables. The paradox went further : Alsatians 
 (when German policemen were out of hearing) prayed in German to be 
 French again and in German called themselves French at heart, not know- 
 ing any other tongue but German and the dialect. All because they had 
 once been French I There is probably no more astonishing example of the 
 moral and intellectual imprint of a people which all the material might of 
 militaristic Germany never succeeded in effacing — whether the method was 
 force, seduction, bribery, or what not. 
 
 Knowing that their lot was continually subject to review, that their 
 fair land would inevitablj' be the first to suffer when the age-long struggle 
 should be renewed, the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine, no matter what 
 their sympathies, lived an existence compounded of uncertainty and dread. 
 The United States is committed to rectifj^ing the wrong done France in 
 1871 : hence France will be the spokesman in pronouncing the fate of Alsace- 
 Lorraine after the war. Of course, the restoration will evoke across the 
 Rhine the same passionate protests which France and her friends have 
 uttered for half a century. Upon no question raised by the war is German 
 national sentiment so unanimous. The Socialist deputj^ Scheidemann has 
 said, "If on the first of February we signed a treaty giving up those 
 
 * Napoleon said of his Alsatian soldiers, "Let them speak their patois: they always 
 fight in French." 
 
 12 
 
provinces, then on February 2nd we should begin our preparations for 
 another war in order to reconquer them." Such words are simply another 
 argument, if any were needed, for universal disarmament as part of the 
 peace treaty. 
 
 Is sentiment the only reason for Germam^'s determination thus ex- 
 pressed? By no means, for the vital reasons are economic and military. 
 Nature has hoarded boundless wealth in the iron-ore fields of German and 
 French Lorraine. For Germany, indeed, her Lorraine iron-ore fields have 
 become of vital importance, since, owing to the rapid exhaustion of her 
 stores of superior ore, she is more and more dependent on the mines there.* 
 In 1910 the production of the Lorraine mining district was more than twice 
 as large as that of all her other districts put together.*" For this territory 
 Germany would be willing to fight as for very life. There are many other 
 forms of wealth in the lost provinces, but the iron and steel industry 
 naturally takes easj^ precedence. Closely coupled and allied with these 
 economic motives are the military reasons. In 18T0 the generals had in- 
 sisted on the necessity of giving New Germany securer frontiers, of making 
 any future attack by France more difficult, and of gaining for Germany a 
 corresponding advantage in the event of her taking the offensive. 
 
 Without her desiring it or doing aught to bring it about, France 
 through the means of a second war sees the restoration near at hand. After 
 the reconstitution of Belgium, must come the restoration to France of her- 
 lost provinces, those lost in 1870 like those lost in 1914. Each of them 
 belongs to her by right. If it was right for Germany to take Alsace in 1871, 
 why was France permitted to keep it in 1815, when she was at the mercy 
 of the allies? No honest man believes that because Germany has controlled 
 a tenth of France for the last three years she has the slightest right to that 
 territory, or ever will have, or ever could have. If she should keep her grip 
 upon them for forty years and more, as she has kept it upon Alsace- 
 Lorraine, she would have no greater right than on the very first day of her 
 unspeakable aggression. As Prof. Hazen remarks, there is no more a "ques- 
 tion" of Alsace-Lorraine today, after forty-seven years of occupation, than 
 there is of the departments of the north, after three years of occupation. 
 
 * J. B. W. Gardiner calls attention in his new book, "German Plans for the Next 
 War" to a memorandum drawn up and addressed in December, 1917, by the Association of 
 German Manufacturers of Iron and Steel, to the German Government. The document 
 demands that Germany annex the French iron areas centering in Longwy and Briey because 
 of their "extreme importance for German national economy and for the conduct of future 
 wars" It insists that the frontier be pushed westward not only to include the present 
 French iron deposits, but to place them beyond the range of the French artillery. Only in 
 this way, it states, can France be prevented from checking Germany's future wars. 
 
 **W. H. Dawson, Problems of the Peace; N. T., 1918. P. 12]. 
 
 13 
 
Oiiglit there to be a referendum? No one would think of demanding 
 that a popular vote be taken today in the Department of the North, for 
 instance, to see if it should become French again. There is no more reason 
 for consulting the departments of the Upper Ehine, of the Lower Rhine, 
 and of the Moselle, taken forty-seven years ago, by precisely the same 
 methods. Even admitting in the abstract the justice of the referendum as 
 the ideal method of settling such a problem, we must in this case invalidate 
 its propriety b}^ asking, T^Hio would conduct it? Who would be entitled to 
 vote? Since 1871 the inhabitants of the provinces have increased from a 
 million and a half to nearly two millions (the birth-rate is considerably 
 higher than the French) and this increase has been coincident Avith a radical 
 change in the racial composition of the population, for while there has been 
 a large emigration of French, both at the time of the transfer and later, 
 there has been a still larger influx of German immigrants from other parts 
 of the empire to Alsace, where they are rewarded by the choicest offices. 
 The fundamental fact to be allowed for is that two generations have been 
 bom since 1871, and that the Alsace of today is very different from that of 
 forty-seven years ago. 
 
 The local constitution of 1911 gave Alsace-Lorraine a larger measure 
 of autonomy than it had hitherto enjoyed, yet, although it has now a legis- 
 lature of its own (endowed with the usual limited powers of German legis- 
 latures) it is still in effect governed from Berlin and by the emperor's 
 irresponsible nominees. Here, indeed, the original population and the immi- 
 grants have a grievance in common, for nothing is more galling to people 
 from states with fairly liberal constitutions, like Baden and Wtirtemburg, 
 than to find on crossing the frontier that they have suddenly become citizens 
 of an inferior type.* "NAHiat is needed, in the almost unthinkable but still 
 barely possible event of any portion of Alsace remaining in German hands, 
 is that the population should be given political independence as complete, 
 at least, as that enjoyed by any other German state. 
 
 There have been many other solutions put forward beside the only just 
 and complete one of restoration — such as neutralization: but the time for 
 neutral states seems to have passed ; or a compromise : but that is only pos- 
 sible in case of an indecisive peace. No; clearly, emphatically, must the 
 twentieth century redress the greatest iniquity of the nineteenth. 
 
 Dawson, op. cit. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE POLES 
 
 It is a far cry from the days when Poland was one of the strongest and 
 most respected kingdoms of Europe to her present sad state. No other 
 nation has had such an historical contrast. The middle of the sixteenth 
 century, which saw impressive victories over Sweden and Russia, Moscow 
 become Polish, most of Russia reduced to an abject condition, was the coun- 
 try's most glorious epoch. Subsequent rulers proved incapable of securing 
 the nation from the jealousy of her neighbors. A disaster at the hands of 
 Turkey led in 1074 to the election of Sobieski as king — a warrior so anxious 
 to win back lost prestige that, while largely successful in arms, he sadly 
 impoverished the country. After Swedish, Russian and Turkish invasions, 
 it was Saxony's turn, and a Saxon king became (1697) head of both nations. 
 The new ruler was a friend of Russia and from his regime dates Poland's 
 dependence on the Muscovites and her consequent decline. A few years 
 after his death some of the Polish nobles — traditionally a proud, sensitive, 
 independent class — endeavored to throw off the Russian influence. This 
 was the chance Frederick the Great had been aw^aiting. Having previously 
 gained Austria's consent to a partition of Poland, he now, in 1770, made 
 the same proposal to Russia, and two years later effected the first of the 
 famous three dismemberments of the country. Surrounded by the three 
 greatest military monarchies of Europe, nothing could save Poland, and she 
 lost one-fifth of her population, one-fourth of her territory. 
 
 The excuse for the second partition was a revolution in Poland, which 
 was made the pretext for Russian intervention. This time (1793) Russia 
 made up for her previous failure to secure an equal third of the spoils and 
 obtained about 250,000 square miles. In an incredibly short time the Polish 
 indignation at this brutality spread into a rebellion against the Russian 
 occupants, who were defeated in more than one pitched battle. All the 
 glory of the bitter struggle was with the vanquished, and if the Poles had 
 shown themselves amateurs in the science of organization and government, 
 they at least died in battle like heroes. The third partition, in 1795, was 
 participated in by all three of her unscrupulous neighbors. 
 
 The immediate result of this, the practical disappearance of Poland, 
 was an immense emigration of the more high-spirited Poles, who during the 
 next ten years fought the battles of the French republic and of Napoleon 
 all over Europe, but principally against their own enemies. After the 
 Napoleonic wars begins the long continued emigration to America of a 
 
valiant people whom fate had convinced that no great future was ever in 
 store for them unless they carved out their own destiny in a new country — 
 a pure democracy. The many Polish settlers who have remained in France 
 also date from that epoch; and there, as here, their ability has had full 
 scope. After Napoleon, what was left of the old Polish kingdom was con- 
 stituted under the Emperor of Russia as king. Two more abortive revolts 
 against Russia took place, in 1830 and 1863, and with the latter the national 
 historj^ of Poland closes. 
 
 Any attempt to set forth the present condition and treatment of the 
 Poles as a conquered race necessarily falls into three classes and becomes a 
 comparison of governmental methods requiring more space than is here 
 available. Naturally, the Poles of the three partitioning countries have 
 looked with the greatest favor upon that power which promised them the 
 largest measure of justice. In promises all three have been prodigal. There 
 has been constant interchange of thought between the Polish leaders of all 
 three countries. Sienkiewicz among others called on his compatriots every- 
 where to identify themselves with the cause of the Russian people. Others 
 — the church party and many influential nobles — have placed more faith in 
 Austria. It is significant that no Polish leader has turned to the Hohen- 
 zollerns for support or has accepted German promises except with much 
 reservation — both expressed and mental. The fortunes of war have rendered 
 the hope of all Poles for a restoration of their ancient kingdom not entirely 
 illusory.* Apparently, Germany is encouraging the plans of Austria to 
 place a Hapsburg on the throne; but whatever faith Galician (Austrian) 
 
 * On April 8-10, 1918, there was held at Rome a Congress of Oppressed Nationalities 
 of Austria-Hungary (to which further reference will be made in the article on the South 
 Slavs), at which the Polish delegates read a special memorandum of their own, parts of 
 which follow: 
 
 "This fatal prospect (a Poland dependent on Germany and degraded to the status 
 of a German hinterland, with access to the sea only through East Prussia) would be in no 
 way modified if Germany consented to an Austrian solution of the Polish question, even if 
 it were based on the principle of Polish-Austro-Hungarian trialism; for in this case Poland 
 would be in a minority as against Austria-Hungary, as in Austria itself the Czechs and 
 Jugo-Slavs would be in a minority against the Germans. 
 
 "Thus the Polish question admits of no cut-and-dried solution and of no compromise. 
 Poland will either be saved with the Allies or she will become dependent upon Germany, 
 either with or without Austria; above all, upon all-powerful Prussia. 
 
 "There is only one way of avoiding this latter alternative, and that is by countering 
 the plans of the Central Powers with regard to Poland by the proclamation of the Polish 
 programme, which is that of the Allies. This programme is the reunion into one independent 
 state of all the Polish lands, including those which the Central Empires are refusing to 
 restore to Poland and those which they are bestowing as largess on their vassals. This 
 programme is the restitution to Poland of the mouth of the Vistula, of Danzig, and of the 
 Polish portion of the Baltic coastline. This programme is the prevention of Lithuania and 
 the Ukraine from becoming instruments of Prusso-German oppression and Austrian intrigue. 
 
 "It is only such a Poland, reconstituted under these conditions, of sufficiently large 
 extent, stretching to the sea, furnished with all the resources for independent existence, 
 separated from Germany and Austria by a line drawn almost due north and south — it is 
 only such a Poland as this which will be able to fulfil its historic mission as a rampart 
 against the German flood which is always ready to overflow its boundaries . . ." 
 
 16 
 
Poles may put in Austrian promises, they will look long before they leap 
 into a Hohenzollern trap. Their position in the Hapsburg dominions dur- 
 ing the last fifty years has been by no means intolerable. 
 
 On the whole, the Austria;n government has shown unexpected skill in 
 its dealings with the Poles, granting concessions to the national spirit which 
 were at times galling to their allies in Berlin. Instructive is the contrast 
 between the treatment of their Poles by the two central allies. In Austrian 
 Poland the native language is not forbidden ; in the universities of Cracow 
 and Lemberg it is even the vehicle of instruction. Germany on the other 
 hand, in order to convert her 4,000,000 of Poles into Germans, has forbidden 
 the use of the language in public and private education, and even in reli- 
 gious instruction. Letters addressed in Polish are not forwarded by the 
 German postoffice; Polish theaters, clubs, societies are not allowed to exist. 
 Besides, the Prussian government has tried to Germanize the districts where 
 Poles prevail by its traditional polic}' (another example of which, in Alsace, 
 we saw in the last article) of settling German peasants among them. With 
 government grants, which in 1908 amounted to as much as $175,000,000, 
 land was bought belonging mostly to Polish i:)easants, who have thereupon 
 largely emigrated; life ceased to be very pleasant for the Pole who sold 
 his land to a German ; for thus being bribed to desert the cause he must be 
 prepared to face the boycott of his Polish neighbors and the anathema of 
 the village priest. Church and national cause are completely identified, 
 and the Polish clergy enjoy a respect from their parishioners which gives 
 them vast powers of control. 
 
 Despite all government measures the Poles have not only held their 
 ground in the east of Germany, but even seem to have gained ground, partly 
 because their national instinct is strongly developed and because they cling 
 to their language, partly because the Poles are more prolific than the Ger- 
 mans. Thus in the province of Posen, where 1,000,000 Poles and 900,000 
 Germans lived side by side, the Germans increased by only 4 per cent, be- 
 tween 1890 and 1900, while the Poles increased by about 11 per cent, during 
 the same period. 
 
 "I would rather sacrifice the Rhineland," said Bismarck, "than the 
 Polish provinces.'" Why? Where is the danger to Germany's 65,000,000 
 from her 4,000,000 Poles? But these Prussian Poles are only a part of a 
 greater host — ^18,000,000 or more — seven to eight millions in Russia, four 
 in Austria, and three in America. The growth of a Polish national feeHng 
 is for the Germans dangerously allied with the Pan-Slavic movement. The 
 growth of a "greater Slavic" feeling among Poles, Russians and Bohemians 
 
 17 
 
is fraught with great danger to Germanj^'s future — to say nothing of the 
 millions of the South Slavs. 
 
 One can easily see, then, why Germany should be so anxious to Ger- 
 manize her subjects by any means, while Austria should be willing to grant 
 concessions. Germany is a really Teutonic state ; with the exception of this 
 impotent minority of Poles and of a few thousand Danes practically all her 
 subjects speak the German language. In Austria, on the other hand, the 
 Germans being decidedly in a numerical minority, cannot well impose their 
 culture on one of the elements — the Slavic — which form the majority of 
 the population of the entire empire, and are wise enough to abstain from 
 trying. Consequently the German Poles have always allied themselves with 
 the Catholic Center or the Socialists, or any other party which at any given 
 time threatened to embarrass the government. In Austria, however, Polish 
 patriots have risen to leadership in Parliament; and Poles have even been 
 members of cabinets. 
 
 As to the treatment of the Poles in the present war, there is but little 
 definite information that can be relied on. The land we laiow has been 
 fought over by both sides until it must resemble the battlefields of the 
 Thirty Years War. We have heard tales of eyewitnesses — apparently 
 credible — according to which the legendary cruelty of the ignorant Russian 
 soldiery pales before the planned, organized rapine of the defenders of 
 western culture. Nor is this treatment confined to military "exigencies." 
 For instance, the cable brings the following advertisement in the Deutsche 
 Tageszeitung : 
 
 "For Exchange — Fifty Polish work-people, 20 men, 30 girls, for ex- 
 change for an equal number of other work-people." 
 
 What German Socialists thought about it appears from this comment 
 in the Vorwaerts : "Here are 50 people offered for exchange as if they were 
 cattle. It is evident that these human beings have as little to say concerning 
 their disposition as would a herd of oxen." 
 
 And this happened almost on the same day that the kaiser received a 
 delegation of the Polish regency council, and assured it that he always was 
 the defender of humanity in general and of the Poles in particular. Where- 
 fore, he urged it to believe : "You will be best serving your fatherland if, 
 in common with the German empire and Austro-Hungarian monarchy, you 
 pursue the aims which guarantee the weal of humanity and peaceful co- 
 operation of peoples as against the calumnies of the enemy," 
 
 The Polish delegation may have perceived that it had little option about 
 the i^roposal. But the rest of the world can have no excuse for ignorance 
 about what would be the fate of any peoples or provinces left to Germany 
 by the peace settlement. At all events there is no place in a future Poland 
 for Hohenzollern influence, no matter what the role of the Hapsburgs may 
 be in the nation that is to arise from the ashes of the present war. 
 
 18 
 
IV 
 AUSTRIA AND THE BOHEMIANS 
 
 There seems to be no question but that after the war there will still be 
 a German}^ — empire or republic — a German}^ shorn of her ill-gotten gains, 
 of Alsace-Lorraine, of at least parts of Prussian Poland^but still Germany, 
 whether repentant or not. The ethical bases of depriving her of these terri- 
 tories have been demonstrated in previous articles. But with Austria the 
 case is different. If she is deprived of the territory which all the various 
 claimants demand, there will be hardly any Austria left. Not that that 
 would be any great misfortune to the world; but it indicates that any 
 territorial changes must necessarily be effected in a spirit of compromise. 
 
 Can the Hapsburg empire survive the present crisis ? The question has 
 been asked many times already during the last century and each time 
 answered in the negative, yet the empire still exists and is playing a leading 
 part in international i^olitics at this moment. Of course, it is in spite of her 
 lack of homogeneity, not because of it, that she has thus existed. It is the 
 only great state of Europe which has no natural basis, and that is why its 
 condition has long been held to be precarious. It is a bundle of nations and 
 fragments of nations, originally brought together by the lucky marriages 
 and conquests of members of the Hapsburg family, and in more recent days 
 held together mainly by fear of what would happen if they broke asunder. 
 The empire is divided into two distinct halves, with distinct governments, 
 and each of these halves is dominated by a ruling race — the Germans of 
 Austria proper in the Austrian half, and the Magyars in the Hungarian 
 half. Austrians and Hungarians have fought bitterly in the past and do 
 not love one another now. Both the German Austrians and the Hungarians 
 occupy clearly defined areas, but all the outlying parts of the empire are 
 peopled by other races, quite distinct from the Austrians and Hungarians 
 and in most cases closely related to other free races over the border — whence 
 comes much of the complexity of the problem. 
 
 First among these subject races may be named the Bohemians or Czechs, 
 who occupy a large area in the north, a sort of island among the German 
 speaking peoples, walled in by mountains. As a matter of fact, they are 
 not only surrounded by Germans, but number among their population a 
 considerable proportion of Germans, who would have reasonable ground for 
 objection if they were to be ultimately included in a new independent state. 
 This German minority (in Bohemia proper, 35 per cent.*) cannot justly be 
 
 * But see p. 34. 
 
 19 
 
abandoned to Czech nationalism, enjoying power for the first time and 
 schooled as a victim, in Austrian methods of employing it. 
 
 But for the moment let us speak only of the Czechs in Bohemia. They, 
 like the Poles, look back to a proud national history, the greatest days of 
 which were in the fifteenth century, w^hen the enthusiasm raised bj' the 
 doctrines of John Hus, a forerunner of the Reformation, and the military 
 genius of a group of great Bohemian soldiers, enabled them triumphantly 
 to defy the might of Germany and indeed of all Europe. The kingdom of 
 Bohemia passed by marriage to the German dukes of Austria, but the 
 Bohemians proudly maintained their separate national existence, until it 
 was crushed out by a fierce Austrian persecution in the seventeenth century. 
 
 ''Whoever is master of Bohemia," Bismarck once said, "is master of 
 Europe." He had in mind not the nominal rulership, but the mastery of 
 problems which have never ceased to trouble Europe. Throughout her 
 perturbations Bohemia has within the last century grown economically to 
 a commanding position in Austria and Europe. Agriculturally and indus- 
 trially highly productive, with enormously rich coal deposits and the most 
 famous mineral springs in the world, Bohemia enjoys indeed a proud pre- 
 eminence. 
 
 For centuries, too, Bohemia has been prominent in the arts of peace. 
 The Czech nation gave to the world Comenius, the pioneer in many fields 
 of education, and in more recent times Bohemia has been one of the artistic 
 centers of Europe. In music Dvorak and Smetana; in painting. Max, 
 Orlick, Schwaiger and many others, prove that Bohemian culture has not 
 been crushed hj persecution. 
 
 It is probably in Bohemia that of all the various racial elements in 
 Austria, the war between nationalism and Germanism has been waged with 
 the greatest bitterness. All such struggles turn chiefly on the question of 
 either language or religion. In the three preceding articles we have seen 
 what a large part of the anti-German bitterness has been caused by the 
 Teutonic persecution of the native language. It has been hardly less true 
 of Bohemia. To be sure, the Austrians, as also in the case of their Poles, 
 have not been quite so unreasonable as their allies, but the Czechs have 
 never been treated so considerately as the Poles in Galicia. In a word, it 
 may be said that in Bohemia the policy of Germanization has once more 
 proved a complete failure. 
 
 Naturally enough, certain Czech patriots and agitators have sought by 
 every means at their command to undermine the hold of the Hapsburgs on 
 their North Slavic dominions. No settlement of Austria is worth consider- 
 
ing which does not satisfy the Czechs' legitimate aspirations ; but Mr. Toyn- 
 bee, in his invaluable book, "Nationality and the War," points out some of 
 the objections. We have already mentioned the considerable German mi- 
 nority in the population of Bohemia; but that is not an insuperable diffi- 
 culty. It would not be impossible — by the exercise of just such methods as 
 the Germans themselves have used in Alsace and Prussian Poland — to get 
 rid of this Teutonic element. But another wrong would not make a right, 
 and in spite of the element of poetic justice that there would be in such a 
 measure, those who will win the war, not being barbarians, will have re- 
 course to juster methods. There are, however, economic and geographic 
 factors which legislation cannot change. 
 
 Bohemia, as a great manufacturing and mining district, dej^ends for 
 its prosperity upon good communication with markets. If Bohemia achieves 
 separation, Germany and Austria can easily build a tariff wall which will 
 cut her off from the outside world. Bohemian trade flows down the river 
 Elbe to Hamburg or else, in the other direction, must focus at Vienna. The 
 map may have decreed that the Czechs should be a nation, but political 
 economy is a later growth than physical geography and has brigaded them 
 inexorably with the German group. 
 
 Not all the Bohemians demand independence. What they claim is only 
 justice — which in such cases means, of course, an impartial reopening of 
 their case. If most of them have demanded the restoration of their ancient 
 kingdom, the demand does not necessarily include a native king on the 
 throne. "The coronation of Francis Joseph at Prague" was their cry. In 
 this their programme went far in its ambition. We must remember that 
 three-fifths of the Austrian population are Slavs. In 1900 the population 
 of Austria was thus composed : Germans 35 per cent., Slavs 59 per cent., 
 Italians 4 per cent., others 2 per cent. With the advance of democracy the 
 Czech leaders believe that, numbers must prevail, and they conceived of 
 Austria in the future as a Slavonic state. Instead of detaching themselves 
 from the Austrian unit, its Slav citizens were to conquer it for Slavdom and 
 convert it into the chief focus of Slavonic culture in Europe. 
 
 If Bohemia became independent her possible leadership in Austria for 
 achieving this aim would be lost. Independent, she would be beset by the 
 perils of the small, surrounded state; as eventual leader, she would become 
 the mainspring of Slav culture in the world. Even if no such aim is 
 achieved — if international jealousy and bickering continually block the 
 Pan-Slavic aspirations — an autonomous Bohemia within the empire may 
 satisfy all but the most extreme. 
 
There is prevalent an undesirable tendency to discriminate too gen- 
 erously between Germany and Austria, and to cast upon the former power 
 the sole responsibility for the war. But it is not easy to see how Germany's 
 a-lly can be exonerated. All the evidence goes to show that this is Austria's, 
 hardly less than Germany's w^ar. Nevertheless, it is possible to discriminate 
 between the Allies. Germany is animated by offensive, Austria primarily 
 by defensive motives. Government and people of Austria are alike con- 
 vinced that they have no alternative save to subdue Pan-Slavism, or soonei- 
 or later submit to mutilation at its hands. Bernhardi's rallying cry of 
 "world dominion or downfall" is singularly appropriate to the position in 
 wdiich Germany and Austria stand today. Germany drew^ the sword in- 
 spired by a hope; Austria, haunted by a fear. Germany deemed that the 
 hour had struck to translate her vision of world-dominion into substance; 
 Austria trembles lest the war which she has provoked with the object of 
 averting, maj merely accelerate, her inevitable dow^nfall. 
 
 Austria in her strength and her weakness — her diversified German and 
 non-German material and intellectual interests, as well her hopeless in- 
 ternal dissensions — is today a considerable stumbling block in the path of 
 Germany's single-minded ruthlessness. Pan-Germanism, always confined 
 to lower Austria (the old Teutonic duchy proper) has made few converts 
 since the war. Vienna is not yet ready to sink to the level of a lesser 
 Berlin. This alliance has taught Austria what to expect in a future part- 
 nership in '"Central Europe.'' It will be the task of w-ise statesmanship 
 among the Allies to reconcile the claims of the Czechs with the position of 
 Austria as an important factor in eventual combinations that shall bring 
 about peace and save the world from future aggression on the i^art of 
 Germany. 
 
 While it would be an exaggeration to maintain that the race antagonism 
 of Slavs and Teutons w\as the chief cause which led to the present cataclysm, 
 it may be safely said that it was one of the main contributory causes. Hence 
 when the terms of peace come to be discussed it will be distinctly wrong 
 if we allow the importance of the West European questions at issue to ob- 
 scure that of the Near Eastern political problems — which for our purpose 
 may include the Czechs as members of the great Slavic family. The point 
 is one which maj^ readily receive less attention than it deserves in this 
 country. The average American thinks he has no particular quarrel with 
 Austria. What he wants is "to crush the hateful spirit of Prussian mili- 
 tarism." If genuine constitutional government were introduced into Ger- 
 many, the danger to other nations produced by the existing form of mili- 
 
tarism would be greatly diminished. But, how ever this may be, it is cer- 
 tain that unless some satisfactory settlement can be made of Near Eastern 
 questions and of the problems which have arisen out of the peculiar com- 
 position of the Hapsburg monarchy, it will not be possible to lay the founda- 
 tions of a durable peace. 
 
 23 
 
V 
 AUSTRIA AND THE SOUTH SLAVS 
 
 The Bohemians are, roughly speaking, the northern branch of the great 
 Slavic family, which in its entirety includes more offshoots of the same 
 people than any other racial division of Europe. Thus Austria's Slavic 
 problem is divided into two distinct parts — the North and the South Slavs, 
 of which the latter present much the greater difficulty. As we saw in the 
 last article, the North Slavs (Czechs, Euthenians and Poles) demand not 
 so much independence as autonomy. Their cousins in the South, on the 
 other hand, divide into those inside the Austrian border and those in inde- 
 pendent states, chiefly Serbia, whose ambition, naturally, is to merge both 
 into one powerful Slavic state. That is what Pan-Slavism means; 
 that is its danger to Austria;* and it has a distinct danger to Germany, 
 too, for if achieved, Slavic unity would constitute an effectual stumbling 
 block to Teutonic dreams of hegemony from Berlin to Bagdad; it would 
 block German control of Turkey ; it would, in conjunction with an Italian 
 victory, shatter almost completely Teutonic outlet to the Mediterranean, 
 and would mark Germany's defeat in the war just as surely as the final 
 success of a western offensive. 
 
 This being the case, it behooves us, as closely as space will permit, 
 to examine into the causes of the Slav separation and the likelihood of 
 eventual unity. 
 
 In the first place, it was absolutely vital to the integrity of the Austro- 
 Hungarian monarch}' that no strong and self-sufficing Slav state should 
 be allowed to grow to maturity upon its southern frontier and to act as a 
 magnet to the millions of discontented Slavs within its borders. Slav 
 aspirations must not only be suppressed at home; they must be prevented 
 from assuming alarming proportions anywhere within dangerous proximity 
 of the Hapsburg boundaries. In other words, the Balkan peninsula must 
 constitute an Austrian, not a Russian sphere of influence. Such a policy 
 must obviously be directed in the first instance against Serbia, whose fron- 
 tiers marched with those of Bosnia and Herzegovina — Slavic provinces 
 which had been nominally the property of Turkey but which the latter had 
 so misgoverned that the Congress of Berlin gave them to Austrian control ; 
 
 * So conscious was Austria of this danger that it is generally believed that the victim 
 of Sarajevo, the heir to the throne, was ready to make the bold experiment of shifting the 
 monarchy to a Slavic base, or at least of constituting the monarchy on a trialistic (German- 
 Magyar-Slav) instead of a dual basis. 
 
 24 
 
in 1908, however, Austria felt that she could annex them outright, and did 
 so despite Russian and Serbian protest. Hence the immediate objective of 
 Austrian statesmen was to maintain Serbia in a position of weakness, and at 
 all costs to prevent that inland state from uniting with her sister Slav king- 
 dom of Montenegro, or from acquiring any part of Albania (south of Mon- 
 tenegro) and thereby obtaining access to the sea. If Serbia were once to 
 open a window on the Adriatic, her economic dependence on Austria would 
 vanish, and her political emancipation from Hapsburg pressure must speed- 
 ily follow. 
 
 Austria was achieving considerable success with her Balkan policy until 
 she made the egregious blunder in 1908 of reopening the whole question by 
 annexing Bosnia. Russia, exhausted by the Japanese war, was too weak to 
 protest effectively^, as her interests clearly dictated if she was to retain her 
 hegemony among all the Slavs, but it threw her into the arms of England, 
 cemented more firmly her French alliance, and altogether aligned the two 
 groupings of the powers on the basis largely of their Balkan policies. 
 
 Why have not, under Russian tutelage, these Slavic states merged? 
 Russia, through her kinship with them on the ground of common religion, 
 customs, and especially her traditional anti-Austrian, anti-Turkish policy, 
 is their natural protector. If she did not demonstrate this in 1908, she made 
 it a cause of war six years later, rather than lose her influence in Serbia. 
 Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and even Bulgaria — had she so chosen — 
 would, then, at any time up to the second, inter-Balkan war (1913), have 
 been assured of Russian support in any effort for a great Pan-Slavic state. 
 The Roumanians, of course, cannot be included in such a group because they 
 are not Slavic, but are reputed descendants of early Roman colonists, speak- 
 ing a language of Latin origin. 
 
 If ever such a state is possible after the war, Serbia would expect its 
 leadership ; and as a matter of fact she has always taken the leading part in 
 Pan-Slavic agitation. There are many more Slavs outside the borders of 
 the little kingdom than there are inside, and the former occupy a position 
 capable of greater potential injury to Austria. It is a question of geography 
 rather than of census. 
 
 The sole port for the thirty millions of Austria is Trieste. To reach 
 Trieste one passes through a large belt of Slavic territory — and Trieste it- 
 self is more Italian than German. The sole port of Hungary is Fiume, to 
 reach which one also passes through much Slavic territory, and in Fiume 
 there are comparatively few Hungarians. The Slavs who cut off Fiume 
 from Hungary, and the Slavs of the Dalmatian coast and of all Bosnia and 
 
Herzegovina belong to the same family — the Serbo-Croats, sometimes called 
 Jugo-Slavs, and the}^ are first cousins to the Slovenes, who cut off Trieste 
 from German Austria ; they all speak practically the same language as the 
 Serbians and Montenegrins ; they are all actuated by the same ideals. 
 
 If those ideals ever find their fullest expression, a glance at the map 
 will show us the predicament in which Austria will be placed; she will be 
 landlocked, whether by Pan-Slavs or by Italians does not much matter to 
 her. The most probable and just outcome will be that each will have a share. 
 
 We see now^ the explanation of Austria's desperate attempts to stifle 
 national aspiration in her South Slavs. She has needed no German prompt- 
 ing to arrive at her point of view regarding the Balkan nationalities. 
 What, then, has prevented these peoples from uniting to seize the favorable 
 moment? For one thing, they are divided in religion. The Serbians are 
 Greek Orthodox, while the Croatians and Dalmatians (those along the 
 Adriatic coast and in Bosnia) are Catholics; the Albanians are mostly Mo- 
 hammedans. Secondly, the Adriatic Slavs have never been willing to play 
 understudy to the Serbians; they feel that their culture is not inferior to 
 Serbian, and certainly Agram, the capital of the South Slavs outside Serbia, 
 is in some ways superior to Belgrade. Finally, there are physical difficulties. 
 The different families of South Slavs are separated from each other by 
 parallel mountain ranges, which make communication not only difficult, 
 but an actual hardship. The closest degree of relationship exists between 
 the Serbians and the Bosnians; and it w^as in Saraievo, the capital of the 
 annexed province, that a Serbian sympathizer thought to start the confla- 
 gration which would result, through Russian help, in a return to the Serbian 
 fold of two million lost brothers. 
 
 The abuses in Bosnia and Herzegovina which led to this outbreak are 
 of the same essential nature as those which have failed dismally to break 
 the spirit of Alsatians, Danes, Poles, Bohemians, and Italians who have 
 been caught in the meshes of the Teutonic web. Practically all the popula- 
 tion of Bosnia speaks Serbian. Yet German is the language of the adminis- 
 tration and the only language of the railways, posts, and telegraphs, which 
 have never ceased to be under military control. Most of the functionaries, 
 after thirty years of service in Bosnia, do not know the language of the 
 country. In German schools, pupils are taught the history of Germany, 
 but in Slavic schools the history of the South Slavs is excluded from the 
 curriculum. Before the war there were fourteen schools for 10,000 Germans 
 (a poor enough showing) but only one school for every 6,000 Slavs. 
 
 26 
 
Always Austria's policy has been to humiliate Serbia, to keep her in 
 economic bondage, to demonstrate to her own millions of Slavs that the 
 Serbians were helpless. But centuries of foreign oppression have failed 
 to stamp out the Serbian national consciousness ; in spite of all persecutions 
 the love of freedom survived, and when in 1903, by methods which we 
 cannot condone but whose end went far to justify their means, a servile, 
 pusillanimous king was done away with, a ruler acceded whose life had been 
 spent in exile. The old love of independence grew with the accession of 
 Peter into a grandiose, imperialistic dream of a greater Serbia as the pro- 
 tector and mistress of all Southern Slavs. How can this claim be reconciled 
 with what the allies will be willing to grant at the peace negotiations? A 
 country which has endured uncomplainingly such sufferings as Serbia is 
 entitled to every consideration, and she has been assured — and properly so 
 — that her legitimate national aspirations will be realized. However, there 
 is some difference of opinion as to whether all her national aspirations are 
 legitimate. The Serb race, like the Polish, has vague outlines. On all sides 
 it melts into and mingles with other races — Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian, 
 Italian, Hungarian. Italian and Serbian aspirations on the Adriatic will 
 be, it must be feared, a source of future trouble.* But the expression "re- 
 alization of Serbian national aspirations" can hardly mean less than that 
 Austria will have to abandon to her Bosnia and Herzegovina — perhaps, 
 indeed, all her Southern Slavs — even, in an extreme case, those in the 
 hinterland of Trieste, The rumblings of Austrian discontent with Ger- 
 many's conduct of the Russian war which came to the surface from time to 
 time during the last winter may provide the necessary opening, apart from 
 the discontent more or less openly expressed with her economic condition. 
 
 We ourselves are not fighting for Serbia, nor should we ever have 
 fought for her, since we were never under any obligations to fight for 
 
 * Resolutions adopted at the Congress of the Oppressed Nationalities of Austria- 
 Hungary, held in Rome April 8 last, as far as concerns the Italo-Jugo-Slav agreement: 
 
 1. In the relations between the Italian nation and the nation of the Serbs, Croats, 
 and Slovenes — known also under the name of the Jugo-Slav nation — the representatives of 
 the two peoples recognize that the unity and independence of the Jugo-Slav nation is a vital 
 interest of Italy, just as the completion of Italian national unity is a vital interest of the 
 Jugo-Slav 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 peace these deci- 
 sions 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 of one people as it may be found necessary to include within 
 the frontiers of the other, there shall be recognized and guaranteed the right to their 
 language, culture, and moral and economic interests. 
 
 Such an agreement at such a congress marks a new era in the policy of the Entente. 
 
 27 
 
interests so far removed from our own. But the South Slavs, just as honest- 
 ly as any other of all the peoples partly or wholly governed from Vienna 
 or Berlin, represent an ideal, in the fight for which there can be no distinc- 
 tion of language, race, or religion. Serbian history may not, indeed, be 
 unblotted; but the splendid pluck with which her sons have faced the 
 Austrian Goliath and smitten him hip and thigh before they were over- 
 whelmed by numbers and a dire vengeance taken, would have wiped out 
 many worse blots. Serbia deserves, many times, all that the victors can 
 do for her, and if the expense could be borne by Bulgaria — which has twice 
 in three years stabbed her treacherously in the back — as well as by Austria, 
 it would divide the cost of the crime more fairly among the conspirators. 
 
VI 
 UNREDEEMED ITALY 
 
 Italia irredenta is what it is called over there — in other words, unre- 
 deemed Italy, those districts inhabited for generations by Italians, but in 
 the destiny of which she has no voice. We have seen in the last two articles 
 that there is also a Serbia irredenta and a Roumania irredenta ; let us now 
 examine into the justice of those who claim that the Austro-Hungarian 
 Italians have been fully as ill-treated as the Slavs and Roumanians of the 
 dual monarchy. We must recognize at the outset that there may legitimate- 
 ly be two opinions about Italian war-aims in their entirety; and we have 
 already seen something of the way in which in one direction (the eastern 
 Adriatic coast) they clash with Slavic aspirations. That is one of the best 
 examples of the need of compromise when the many victorious allies not 
 only sit in judgment on the instigators of the war, but reconcile their 
 own conflicting claims on the basis of nationality — if it can be done. 
 
 Every nation's claims to territory as proclaimed to the world are bound 
 to be more grandiose than she can ever really expect to realize. Just how 
 true that is of Italian claims depends on the sympathies of those who ask 
 the question. The range from those who claim that greater Italy is entitled 
 to Nice, Corsica, part of Asia Minor (Smyrna district) and parts of Abys- 
 sinia, to those who remain content with Trentino and Trieste, includes a 
 vast variety of opinion, and yet logical proof is at hand to support each 
 contention. 
 
 From a glance at the map it Avould seem that Italy already holds more 
 of the Adriatic coastline than Austria-Hungary. But the Italian littoral 
 affords few harbors, none of which is of strategic value, whereas the oppo- 
 site shore, a rocky, picturesque coast land, contains some of the finest natural 
 harbors in the world, affording a preponderant strategic advantage to the 
 country possessing them. Italians have from the earliest days recognized 
 this . Under the Roman dominion and later, with her rise to first rank, 
 under the Venetian republic, both coasts were Italian for over 1,000 years. 
 The whole extent of its shores were lined with thriving wealthy cities, whose 
 culture was entirely Italian. Satisfied with a thin strip of coastland, they 
 made no attempt to penetrate into the interior. Long after Venetian power 
 had crumbled and Austria had succeeded to its domain, they remained, with 
 little concern for the Slavs of the interior. When in 1866 Venice was united 
 with the kingdom of Italy, Austria retained the ancient possessions of the 
 
 29 
 
doge on the eastern Adriatic. Thus are to be accounted for nearly half a 
 million Italians living opposite their independent brothers, with whom they 
 maintain close relations and with whom they seek some day to be united as 
 a part of greater Italy. 
 
 Austria and Hungary, from the very beginning of their existence as a 
 dual monarchy, have been caught in the vise between Italian irrendentism 
 and Serbian irredentism — between Greater Italy and Pan-Slavism. From 
 the economic point of view, one cannot but sympathize with the determina- 
 tion of the Austrians and Hungarians to prevent the disaster which would 
 certainly come to them if the aspirations of Italian and of Serbian irre- 
 dentism were realized. The severity of Hungary against Croatia and the 
 oppression of the Serbians in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Dalmatia by 
 Austria have been prompted by the same reasons which led England and 
 Scotland to try to destroy the national spirit of Ireland for so many cen- 
 turies after her independence was gone. Thej' could not afford to have their 
 communications bj'' sea threatened by the gi'owth of an independent nation, 
 especially since this nation was believed to be susceptible to the influence of 
 hereditary enemies. If there is any salvation for Austria in this direction 
 it will lie in what it is to be feared will be the inevitable clash between 
 Slavic and Italian interests. 
 
 The race hatred of the Slavs for the Italians, who had always treated 
 the Slavs rather indifferently, had long been latent. Prompted in part 
 by Vienna, the Slovenes really needed small urging to combat the growing 
 irredentism of the Italians of the littoral. It was a congenial role for the 
 Slovenes, whose expansion was now tolerated for the first time in their 
 histoiy. It seems curious that Austria would give them such a chance, 
 knowing that later it might well lead to increased demands ; but the Slavic 
 problem was in Austria -Hungary to stay, and she could at least plaj'^ them 
 off against another racial element, so numerically inferior that it might 
 give up the struggle. 
 
 Trieste became the goal of Slavic ambitions, and the city was seemingly 
 delivered up to them as their prey by the Austrians. Developing rapidly, 
 the movement soon embraced all the Italian cities of the east coast. Under 
 Austrian subvention Slavs emigrated to cities which had been largely 
 peopled by Italians. Clashes between the Slavs and the Italians in Trieste 
 became everyday occurrences, instigated by Slavic agitators who felt secure 
 in the knowledge that they would not be prosecuted. It was a device worthy 
 of Prussia— worthy a country which wanted to provoke a war which could 
 then be proclaimed to the world as having been forced upon her. The 
 
 30 
 
Italian inhabitants were driven— even against, perhaps, their better judg- 
 ment — to call for help from across the border. Slovene bishops were 
 appointed to congregations whose members were strongly Italian; local 
 officials were seldom Italian ; restrictions on the use of the language became 
 gradually more irksome. 
 
 '\^niile the problem was racially quite different, things were going no 
 better in the Trentino, that other district where Italians are coerced by 
 Austrians — the real German Austrians in this case, not Slavs acting under 
 Austrian propulsion. This fair province, with an area of 4,000 square 
 miles and a population of about 400,000 Italians, is a dangerous wedge 
 between the Swiss border and the plains of Venetia. It was for centuries 
 an independent Italian prince-bishopric and was arbitrarily annexed to 
 Austria on the fall of Napoleon. The Trentino valleys have from the 
 earliest times been the pathway of the numerous invasions of Italy from 
 the north. In the east, moreover, the valley of the Isonzo in the hands of 
 a foreign power leaves the Friulian plain open to incursion. Thus along 
 nearlj^ all her northern boundary Italy was in a position of marked strategic 
 inferiority, while her navy, as we have seen, has had to contend with poor 
 harbors. 
 
 The Germans in the Trentino have, of course, played much the same 
 role as the Austrians and Slavs in Dalmatia. In the Trentino, repressive 
 measures have taken an economic as well as a cultural form. Notwithstand- 
 ing its abundant water supply, suitable for the generation of valuable indus- 
 trial motive power, and a dense population, providing an adequate labor 
 market, the Trentino remained in a state of primitive agricultural de- 
 velojDment, while just south of the boimclary, in Italy, prosperous indus- 
 trial centers everywhere sprang up. 
 
 Mr. Wallace, in his "Greater Italy,'' details the zeal with which the 
 Germans of Tyrol worked to crush the Italian population of the Trentino. 
 Their most insidious activity Avas along educational lines. Pan-Germanic 
 organizations strove to offer school facilities of such distinct advantage 
 that every ambitious Italian parent of the Trentino, wishing to improve 
 the condition of his children, would send them to these German speaking 
 schools, where by insidious teaching the child would soon be influenced to 
 abjure his Italian heritage. 
 
 Italy's consciousness of her great national destiny is a more recent 
 growth than that of any other country. On that account her hunger for 
 territorial expansion has been declared by some to be but the natural land 
 greed of nn upstart in the family of nations, so swarming with life, so 
 
teeming with youthful energy, so proud of her newly acquired dignity and 
 standing, that it all demanded an overflow. She entered the race for Afri- 
 can colonies and has, after considerable trouble, acquired three. That gave 
 her confidence. It was then time to give heed to her unredeemed brothers 
 who were calling to her much more closely than from Africa. Gradually, 
 she was breaking away from Germany and Austria — it was an unnatural 
 alliance at best — and was veering around to her logical friends, France and 
 England. In no way was she consulted when Austria and Germany pro- 
 voked war. Her very neutrality proves that to Italian minds the war was 
 an aggressive one on Germany's part, for the terms of the alliance bound 
 Italy to help her Teutonic friends only in case it was a war of defense. 
 
 So Italy remained neutral for many months. But permanently neutral, 
 she would have been recreant to her opportunity. Her writers — Carducci, 
 D'Annunzio, two of the greatest poets of the century — her far sighted states- 
 men, Sonnino, Salandra, were educating the masses by writing everywhere 
 the inscription "Per la piu grande Italia." The fact that the Central em- 
 pires recognized the justice of that cry is shown by their willingness to 
 cede much of Italia irredenta.. Wliy. then, did not Italy accept the offer 
 and, while remaining at peace, attain most of her objects? Because both 
 Austria and Germany had a curious objection to the immediate transfer of 
 the territory. Italy surely would not mind if the arrangement would not 
 take effect till after the war, when the transfer could be attended with more 
 dignity? To which Sonnino replied in effect, "But suppose you don't win?" 
 A promissory note on Germany was not worth taking seriously, especially 
 with Belgium a recent examjDle. 
 
 No, it was not land greed so much as a spirit like that of the Christian 
 crusader setting out to redeem the shrines of the Holy Land, which inspired 
 the Italian people to work for the liberation of their brothers still under 
 the Austrian yoke. Despite the disaster on the Isonzo, Italy has already 
 won a great victory. The future has for her untold possibilities in store. 
 Her best friends will advise her to be magnanimous to the sorely tried Slavs, 
 but if she can be moderate in her victory she will show a greatness of soul 
 worthy of the country that has produced a Cavour. And such a leadership 
 as that no country has surpassed, not Germany, with Bismarck, France 
 with Gambetta, nor England with Gladstone. 
 
 32 
 
VII 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 In the. six articles which have apjieared under this heading, the greatest 
 lesson AThich the war can teach lis is writ in letters so large that, he who 
 runs can read — or else they have utterly failed in their purpose. Hence 
 little in the way of epilogue or summary should be necessary, except to 
 emphasize certain points common to all the articles, upon which space 
 forbade teaching with detail. 
 
 After all, each case must be judged on its merits, and no argument 
 should hold good except the honestly ascertained Avish of the population 
 actually concerned. The most difficult point, of course, if plebiscites are 
 to be taken, is to obtain freedom of voting, secure against coercion of any 
 kind. This, it may be repeated, would be so difficult in the case of Alsace — 
 on account of the hundreds of thousands of native sons wdio have emigrated 
 and of the even greater number of Germans who have immigrated— as to 
 make it impossible to conduct a just referendum. It is no less true in the 
 case of the Poles who are even more scattered. 
 
 If each case must be judged on its own merits, above all must we be 
 on our guard against "historical sentiment'' — against arguments taken from 
 conditions which once existed or were su])posed to exist, but which are no 
 longer real at the present moment. Some extreme examples of this we 
 have seen, and the truism has already been pointed out that each country 
 will claim more than it can really expect to receive. 
 
 The national problems of Europe are numerous — by nt> means confined 
 to the Central Powers — and each one is beset by arguments good, bad and 
 indifferent, some so elaborately staged that it requires the greatest discern- 
 ment to unmask them. Vast bodies of people, with brains and money at 
 their disposal, have been interested in obscuring the truth, and to do so 
 have used everj^ instrument in their power. To discriminate between this 
 use and abuse of intellect and money w^e need profound knowledge not only 
 of history but of ethnology, geography, religion, comparative literature and 
 national psychology. It is, then, a case for experts with ample scope for 
 their elucidations, and it is evident that articles so neces.sarily limited in 
 space can but skim the surface. 
 
 In our surveys we must be scrupulously fair, or they lose what value 
 they might have. Where the Allies may have been at fault we must recog- 
 nize it, in a friendly way, and where we may have exaggerated Teutonic 
 
injustice we, as students of history rather than propagandists, owe it to our 
 Anglo-Saxon love of fair play to remedy it. On the other hand, some 
 readers have found the tone of these articles not mild enough to fit the 
 crimes with which they deal. The Bohemian National Alliance, for instance, 
 has pointed out some supposed errors of fact, or judgment, in the article 
 entitled "Austria and the Bohemians.'' Their statistics show that the number 
 of Germans in Bohemia is not as here stated, 35 per cent., but less than 
 25 per cent. More important, however, is their objection to the statement 
 that "Autonomous Bohemia within the empire may satisfy all but the most 
 extreme." "The fact is," comments the Alliance, "that the whole nation, 
 irrespective of party and creed, is, to use your word, extreme, and will not 
 be satisfied with anything but complete independence." And certainly the 
 facts seem to support the contention that the great mass of the Czechs are 
 not to be persuaded into remaining content with autonomy, despite the 
 specious pleading of their conservative, reactionary leaders, who happen 
 to have greater facilities for bringing their case before the world. One 
 does not die for autonomy, and it is not for autonomy but for absolute 
 freedom that Bohemians are fighting on all fronts, particularly in France, 
 where their revolutionary army is fighting side by side with the other 
 allies. 
 
 How do we find the peoples whom the reverse of the picture might 
 present as oppressed by England and France? We have seen Bohemians, 
 Alsatians, Poles, Croatians and many others fighting against their rulers. 
 Do we find any Irish, South Africans, Egyptians, Indians, Moroccans or 
 French Canadians on the Teutonic side? Not only does a careful inquiry 
 reveal none; not only do we find them volunteering by the thousand in a 
 quarrel which might rightly be deemed none of their concern (if they did 
 not look beyond its immediate causes and see civilization at stake), but we 
 find neutrals from every nation rushing to aid — which side? That which 
 has consistently oppressed ever}'^ nationality within its borders? 
 
 All are fighting to make permanently impossible such an iniquity as the 
 Teutonic persecutions of Danes, Alsatians, Poles, Bohemians, Serbians, 
 Roumanians and Italians ; none will be content with less. It has been said 
 that a peace disrupting Austria on the line of nationality and redeeming 
 from Germany her foreign subjects would leave a sense of injury and 
 wounded pride which would force a high spirited nation to resolve on 
 revenge and to strain every nerve in order to renew the struggle. But 
 there is no wish to impose on Germany such conditions as Napoleon imposed 
 on Prussia in 1807. Germany would remain a great and potent nation, 
 
possibly even stronger than before, if the German parts of Austria should 
 gravitate, as they might veell do, towards the German empire. 
 
 What is the verdict of history? In theory, a peace without victoiy 
 sounds well, but, as a matter of historical fact, permanent peace has never 
 resulted from such a conclusion to a great Avar. Take the wars fought in 
 opposition to Louis XIV's attempt to dominate Europe. One after another 
 those wars recurred for 50 years, and, none of them having been really 
 decisive, it was not till 1713 that the peace of Utrecht finally settled the 
 question by the defeat of France. The War of the Austrian Succession, 
 beginning in 1740, ended in a draw ; the peace of 1748 Avas merely a truce. 
 It led to the Seven Years' War, which ended in 1763 Avith the defeat of 
 France and Austria, and Avith the final triumph of Frederick the Great in 
 Europe and of England in Canada and India. Finally, in the case of the 
 Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, coalition after coalition was formed 
 and broke up without reaching a definite settlement. The peace of Amiens 
 in 1803 was merely a truce between the two chief opponents — England and 
 France. It was not till the complete defeat of France that a settlement was 
 reached, which gave Europe repose for forty years. The questions supposed 
 to be settled by the Crimean War again became acute Avithin a few years. 
 In fact, the only war which ended in a satisfactory peace without victory 
 was that of 1812, which arose out of a comparatively trivial dispute and 
 ended when, with the cessation of the Avar in Europe, the dispute itself 
 came to an end. The great wars which the United States have known, the 
 ReA'olution and the Civil War, both ended in decisive victories. Nothing 
 else would have satisfied either the revolted colonies or the northern states. 
 Everyone knoAvs how Lincoln repudiated the idea of an inconclusi\^e peace 
 in the darkest days of the Civil War. There never was a more crushing 
 victory than that of 18G5 — yet peace, permanent and unbreakable, was the 
 outcome. Peace was maintained because in each case the questions at issue 
 were settled once for all. 
 
 When Marshal Jof^re first set foot on Alsatian soil, he said, in the 
 simple phrases the very directness of which has won him his election to 
 the French Academy : "We have come back for good and all ; henceforward 
 you are and ever will be French. Together Avith those liberties for which 
 her name has stood throughout the ages, France brings you the assurance 
 that your OAvn liberties will be respected — your Alsatian liberties, tradi- 
 tions and ways of living. As her representative I bring you France's ma- 
 ternal embrace." 
 
Can anything be more different than that from the Prussian spirits 
 Even where, as in the case of Eussia's Baltic provinces, she claims them to 
 be "unredeemed Germany," she prefers to be feared rather than loved, and 
 brings not a maternal embrace, but the mailed fist. 
 
 That is why, if peace should be signed without providing for the full 
 restoration of the Teutons' oppressed races, it will be temporary; that is 
 why their quarrel and interests are. in the last analysis, ours as much as 
 anyone's. 
 
 On March 6th the kaiser telegraphed to Hindenburg: "Our Baltic 
 brethren are liberated from the Russian yoke and may again feel themselves 
 Germans." Who are these Baltic brethren who are to have full liberty to 
 determine that they are Germans ? In Courland the Germans are less than 
 nine per cent, of the population. In Livonia they are eight per cent. In 
 Esthonia they are less than that. In Lithuania they are less than two per 
 cent. But the majorities, ranging from 91 per cent, to 98 per cent., will 
 learn to feel themselves German, or the kaiser will know the reason why. 
 All pretence has been cast aside. It is rejected in the terms of the treaty 
 with Roumania, which calls for free transport of the Teuton troops through 
 Roumania and Bessarabia to Odessa, the great seaport of our good and 
 extremely new friend, the Ukrainian republic. 
 
 The Roumanians, in turn, are to receive compensation at Russia's ex- 
 pense for the loss of the Dobrudja and the rectification of their frontier 
 towards Austria-Hungary. The promise of Bessarabia is contained in the 
 stipulation that "as soon as peace is restored between Russia and Roumania. 
 the remaining parts of the Roumanian army will also be demobilized in 
 so far as they are not required for security service on the Russo-Roumanian 
 frontier." Thus the Junker amvises himself with the new picture puzzle 
 game of rearranging Russia. 
 
 What will have happened to the area and population of the Russian 
 state when the Junker playboys get through with their little game of self- 
 determination, is apparent from the following figures : 
 
 Area 
 
 New States square miles Population 
 
 Finland 126,000 3.300,000 
 
 Esthonia T,600 500,000 
 
 Livonia 17,600 1,800,000 
 
 Courland 10,500 800,000 
 
 Poland 43,800 12,000,000 
 
 36 
 
Area 
 
 New States square miles Population 
 
 Lithuania : 
 
 Kovno lo,5(¥) 1,000,000 
 
 Vilna 10.200 2,100.000 
 
 Minsk 35.200 2,000,000 
 
 Grodno 1 5.000 2,000.000 
 
 Ukraine : 
 
 Volhynia 27.700 4,200.000 
 
 Kholm 5,200 1,100,000 
 
 Podolia 10.200 4,000,000 
 
 Kiev 19,700 4,800,000 
 
 Kherson 27,400 3,800,000 
 
 P^katerinoslav 24,500 3,500.000 
 
 Kharkov 21,000 3,500,000 
 
 Poltova 19,300 3,800,000 
 
 Chernigov 20,000 2,200,000 
 
 Mohilev 18,500 2,500.000 
 
 To Roumania: 
 
 Bessarabia 17,000 2.700.000 
 
 To Turkey : 
 
 Batoum 2,700 180,000 
 
 Erivan ' 10.800 1,000,000 
 
 Kars 7,200 400,000 
 
 Total 524,600 66,000,000 
 
 The boundaries of the Ukraine and Lithuania towards Russia have not 
 been fixed, and it is not certain in what proportion the provinces of Minsk 
 and Volhynia will be divided between Lithuania and the Ukraine, but for 
 Russia and Germany it comes to the same thing*. 
 
 The area of the former Russian empire. ex('lusi\e of Siberia and 
 Turkestan, is 2,180,000 square miles, with a population of 160,000,000. The 
 German sword, with the aid of William II"s great ally, has thus determined 
 to self-determine to its own uses one-fourth the area of European Russia 
 and two-fifths of the population. So if Germany loses the war in the West, 
 she is more than making up for it in the East. Here, then, is a seventh 
 major race to be added to those under Teutonic domination. It is hard 
 that we should have to fight for a people who are not mor-e worthy of being 
 helped, but the modern crusade must go on until the deluded Russians, too, 
 have an adequate chance to work out for themselves whatever destiny they 
 can achieve. 
 
 87 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 There are several excellent general histories of Europe in the nineteenth 
 century which should be mentioned first, as material therein applies to all 
 the preceding articles. Some were published before the war, but several 
 good ones have appeared since 1914, with the new viewpoint added by that 
 fact. 
 
 Davis, W. S. Roots of the War. N. Y., 1918. 
 
 Bullard, A. Diplomacy of the War. N. Y., 1916. 
 
 Seymour, C. Diplomatic Background of the War. New Haven, 1915. 
 
 Ferrero, G. Europe's Fateful Hour. N. Y., 1918. 
 
 Rose, J. H. Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914. N. Y., 
 1915. 
 
 Hazen, C. D. Europe since 1815. N. Y., 1910. (The best of all nine- 
 teenth century histories.) 
 
 Seignobos, Charles. Political History of Europe since 1814. N. Y., 
 1899. 
 
 Andrews, C. M. Historical Development of Modern Europe, 1815- 
 1897. 2 vols, in one. N. Y., 1898. 
 
 Hayes, C. J. H, Political and Social History of Modern Europe. Vol. 
 2, 1815-1914. N. Y., 1916. 
 
 Holt, L. W., and A. W. Chilton. European History, 1862-1914. N. Y., 
 1917. 
 
 Apart from European histories, there are some works which apply also 
 to the general subject treated in these essays, works which have appeared 
 recently enough to be thoroughly up-to-date. 
 
 Toynbee, A. J. Nationality and the War. N. Y., 1915. 
 
 Rose, J. H. Nationality in Modern History. N. Y., 1916. 
 
 Fisher, H. A. L. The Republican Tradition in Europe. N. Y., 1911. 
 
 Ogg, F. A. The Governments of Europe. N. Y., 1916 ; Social Progress 
 in Contemporary Europe. N. Y., 1916 ; Economic Development of Modern 
 Europe. N. Y., 1917. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Bismarck, Otto von. Reflections and Reminiscences. 2 vols. London, 
 1908. (Also for Chaps. II and IIL) 
 
 Headlam, J. W. Bismarck. N. Y., 1899. (Also for Chap. II.) 
 
 "\A1iite, A. D. Chapter on Bismarck in Seven Great Statesmen. N. Y., 
 1915. 
 
 Henderson, E. F. History of Germany. N. Y., 1916. 
 
 38 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The war has produced several excellent summaries of the Alsatian ques- 
 tion, Hazen's especially having contributed generously to the preceding 
 chapter. 
 
 Hazen, C. D, Alsace-Lorraine under German Rule. N. Y., 1917. 
 
 Putnam, Ruth. Alsace-Lorraine. N. Y., 1915. (Historical, brief.) 
 
 Blumenthal, Daniel. Alsace-Lorraine. N. Y., 1917. (Very brief.) 
 
 Jordan, D. S. Alsace-Lorraine : a stud}^ in conquest. N. Y., 1916. 
 
 Thiers, Adolphe (first president of the Third French Republic). 
 Memoirs. N. Y., 1916. 
 
 Claretie, Jules. Quarante ans apres. Paris, 1910. 
 
 Acker, Paul. I^ Beau jardin. Paris, 1912. (Descriptive.) 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Whitton, F. E. A History of Poland. N. Y., 1918. 
 
 Lewinski-Corwin, E. H. A Political History of Poland. N. Y., 1917. 
 
 Fife, R. H. The German Empire between Two Wars, Chaps, X-XII. 
 N. Y., 1916. 
 
 St^ed, H. W. The Hapsburg Monarchy. London, 1914. (Also for 
 Chaps. IV and V.) 
 
 Barker, J. E. Great Problems of British Statesmanship. N. Y., 1918. 
 (Also for Chap. V.) 
 
 Gibbons, H. A. The Reconstruction of Poland. N. Y., 1917. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lutzow, Count. Bohemia. London, 1896. 
 
 Capek, Thomas. Bohemia under Austrian Misrule. N. Y., 1915. 
 
 McCabe, Joseph. The Soul of Europe. N. Y., 1915. (Also for Chaps. 
 V and VL) 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Taylor, A. H. E. The Future of the Southern Slavs. N. Y., 1917. 
 
 Savic, V. R. South-eastern Europe. X. Y., 1918. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Wallace, W. K. Greater Italy. N. Y., 1917. 
 
 Underwood, F. K. United Italy. London, 1912. 
 
 Thayer, W. R. Italica (chapters on ^'Italy in 1907," etc.). Boston, 
 1912. 
 
 Pitt, W. O. Italy and the Unholy Alliance. X. Y., 1916. 
 
 Low, S. Italy in the War. X. Y., 1916. (In addition, many of the 
 books depicting the warfare on the Italian front have good summaries of 
 why Italy is fighting.) 
 
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