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fT^I.B.CLARKf co^
26&28TREM0NTST&
ao COURT so BOSTON
^
<
L
NATIONALITY
AND THE WAR
^
NATIONALITY
& THE WAR
BY
ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE
LONDON AND TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON » CO.
HCHXV
"tZ-'R I «^
7 n •. v. /c ^- wc/'vwC ^ .'1'^'^-
PREFACE
This book is an attempt to review the problems of
Nationality in the area affected by the War* My
principal object has been to present the existing facts
in their historical setting, and where these facts are of
a psychol<^cal order, as they so often are, I have
tried to reproduce sympathetically the different nations^
conflicting points of view*
Some readers will regret that I have not confined
myself to narrative altogether, and will resent the ** will **
and " ought *' that punctuate the *' was '' and ** is/*
I would answer them that this practical application is
the justification of the book*
National questions are of absorbing interest at all
times to the particular nations they concern ; they are
of occasional interest to the professional historian who
toudies them in the course of his research ; to the world
in general they are normally of no interest at all* ** But
what are we to do about it i '" people exclaim when a
problem is thrust upon their attention, and finding no
answer they hark back to their own affairs*
This normal life of ours has suddenly been bewitched
by the War, and in the ** revaluing of all our values ""
the right reading of the riddle of Nationality has become
an affair of life and death* The war has exploded the
mine upon which diplomatists have feared to tread,
and we are walking in a trance across ruins* Solvitur
ambulando, or else we break our necks*
This is my apology for laying down the law, and it
will dear up a further difficulty which might otherwise
vi NATIONALITY AND THE WAR
cause trouble* '' When you change from present to
future/' readers will say, ** which do you mean to
expotmd — ^what will happen, what may happen or what
ought to happen i **
Certainly not what ** will happen ** : '* If we win *' is
the implied hypothesis of every sentence I have written,
a hypothesis that baffles prophecy* If I become cate-
gorical, it is a lapse of style, not of standpoint*
Certainly not what ** ought to happen '* in the
Utopian sense : political problems have no universal
solutions* What does not meet the situation meets
nothing : what meets it to-day will not meet it to-
morrow, because the situation itself will have been
transformed by being met*
My text is what *' may happen,*' yet ** may " partakes
of both ** will ** and ** ought *' : its meaning varies
with its application* The problem of Nationality has
come to concern ourselves, and so far as it concerns us
it depends upon us for its solution — upon our intellectual
judgments, the making up of our mind, and upon our
moral judgments, the determination of our will* We
''may*' think this or that thought, feel this or that
feeling, and each will give a different cast to the clay
fate has thrust into our hands. We have to decide
which way we ** ought ** to fashion it*
Yet the solution depends upon others as well* In
*' ourselves *' we often include our allies, but the power
of British will to influence Russian action is slight
indeed, and when we deal with neutrals or enemies, our
own will ceases to cotmt while theirs becomes all-
important* This will of other parties is for us an
objective fact : we can conjecture what it is Ukely to
be, and frame our own action either to thwart or to
promote it, but we cannot determine their will from
PREFACE vii
i, and it is therefore idle for us to debate what
they ''ought*' to do. In discussing what ''may
happen ** on the European continent we have simply
to discover what national ideals or ambitions will assert
themselves if the war removes certain forces like the
traditional regime in Prussia or the Dual System in the
Danufaian Monarchy, which hitherto have prevented
large groups of population from exercising dieir will
and working out their own salvation,
I thus repudiate Utopianism, and declare solvency
for every draft I make upon the future. The only piece
of Utopianism of which I am deliberately guilty is the
suggestion that the UJSJ^, might undertake the ad-
ministration of the Black Sea Straits (Ch, K, Sect, B,),
Of course they will not, and of course Russia wiU, and
again the reader will resent my inconsistency, " Better
have left out the suggestion "' he will say,
I have left it in because it crowns an argument. It is
the rednctio ad absurdum of that dearth of international
oq;anisation which is largely responsible for Europe's
present pass, and possibly it will serve to bring out an
tmderlying purpose of this book.
My review of problems does not pretend to be
exhaustive — ^that would be beyond the scope of a single
book and a single writer, and it would also be a weariness
of the flesh. Problems are legion, and they have no
individual significance in themselves : they are valuable
only as illustrations of a phenomenon. By looking at
Nationality in the concrete from successive perspectives,
we may gain a clearer notion of what Nationality is than
by the direct approach of an abstract definition. At any
rate it is worth while making the experiment, for under-
stand Nationality we must, now that it has proved itself
die dominant political factor in Europe,
via NATIONALITY AND THE WAR
I have still to acfaio^rfedge my obligations. The chief
source of this book is an ingrained habit of gazing at
maps, and much of my material had been imbibed
unconsciously in this way long before the war broke out
and I sat down to write. My consdous debts are to
Stieler's HandrAdas of the contemporary world, and
to the wonderful Historical Adas created by Karl
Spriiner and Theodor Menke his apostle. Both of
these I have consulted continuously ^Aiile writing the
book and compiling my own maps that accompany it,
and I have also derived much profit from the little
AUdeutscher Adas published under the auspices of the
Attdeutsche Verband by Justus Perthes, which plots out
the distribution of languages in Central Europe with
admirable exactitude, though it combines scientific
execution with duuvinistic inspiration in a duracteristL-
cally German fashion* The reader will note in passing
that the other atlases cited are also of German author*
ship, and that oondusions based on their evidence are
not likely to be biassed to Germany's disadvantage,
I am also indebted to books. Among works of
reference I would single out two of Baedeker's hand-
books, the deventh edition of Austria-Hungary (191 1)
and Konstantinopd and Kleinasien (1905), but in this
case the German source yidds precedence to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica (deventh edition, published
in 191 1), which has proved the most indispensable of all
my guides. My extracts from the official census returns
of various states are nearly all derived through this
channel,^ and I have made especially diligent use of the
' The 19x1 editicm of the Encychpiedia takes its Austxx>-Hungarian
statistics nom the census of 1900 : I might have rectified them by the
more recent returns of 1910, but I have deliberately refrained from
doing so. The figures of 1910 of course represent the present absolute
totals of the various populations more accurately than those of 1900^
PREFACE ix
exodlendy arranged articles on '* Austria-Hungary '^
and ** Hungary/'
For what I have written on Hungary I am likewise
in debt to the illumixiating study on Hungary in the
Eighteenth Century ^^ by Professor Marczali, the Magyar
historian, but atx>ve all to the work of Dr* Seton-
Watson. So far as I deal with his subjects, my informa-
tion is taken at second hand : I have learnt all I know
about ** Magyarisation ** from his Racial Problems in
Hungary, and all I know about modem Croatia from
his Southern Slavs* I can do no better than refer the
reader to these two books for the substantiation of my
indictment against the Magyar nation*
The War and Democracy, written in collaboration by
Messrs. Seton-Watson, Dover Wilson, 2Smmem and
Greenwood, was only published after the relevant part
of my own book was already in proof, and I have not
yet had leisure to read it. Yet though I have been
unable to borrow from the book itself, I owe an incalcul-
able debt to another of its authors besides Dr. Seton-
Watson. I have had the good fortune to be Mr.
Zimmem's pupil.
So much for maps and books : they caxmot compare
with friends. Widiout the help of my mother and my
wife, this book would never have grown ripe for publica-
tion, and I have to thank my wife's fadier. Professor
Gilbert Murray, Mr. A. D. Undsay and Mr. H. W. C.
bat relative rather than absolute quantities are valuable for my purpose,
and in this respect the figures of zgoo are undoubtedly more accurate
than those of zgio. In 1900 the " official " proportions were doubdm
already distorted by the Hungarian census-officials, and doubtless the
real proportions have slightly shifted in the meanwhile, but both these
margins of error are insignificant compared with the gross perversions
of truth perpetrated by Hungarian officialdom in 19x0. So rapidly
is a nation demoralised when once it succumbs to chauvinism.
> Published by the Cambridge University Press.
NATIONALITY AND THE WAR
of BalUol College, and Mr. R* W* Qiafmian of the
Clarendon Press, all of ^i^m have read the book in
^i^le or part either in manuscript or in proof. Their
advice has enabled me to raise the standard of my work
in every respect. When the critics tear my final draft
in pieces, I shall reahse how my first draft would have
fared, had it been exposed naked to their daws.
Last but not least, I must express my gratitude to my
publishers, Messrs. J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., for their
unfailing kindness, cspedally for bearing with my delays
and reproducing my maps.
ARNOLD TOYNBEE.
Febntary 19x5.
CONTENTS
PAGE
L The Futdre ••••••«. z
II. PRUSSIAHISU, OR GeRBIANY'S AMBITIONS • • . 21 ^
A. The German Empire 21
B. The French Frontier 40
C. The Danish Frontier 48
%^ D. The Polish Frontier 51
E. Prussian State and German Nation . • . 80
IIL The Vitalitt of Austria 98
IV. Rkxmis'imuchow in the Balkans .... 138
A. Hungary Z4&
B. The Southern Slavs 167
C. A Balkan ZoUverein 2x6
V. TRiBsn AND Italy 246 /
VL TCHBCB AND GeRHAN IN THE NeW AUSTRIA . 261 l/ ^
^ VIL Parslavish, (» Germany's Fears • . . . 273
wVIIL The Russian Empire and National Self-Government 281
A. The Risorgimento of Poland .... 281
B. The National Evolution of Russia . 294
C Devolution 300
D. Expansion 325
^ DC. Russia's Needs •••..••. 337
A. The Liberation of the Baltic • . • . 339
B. The Liberation of the Black Sea . . . 358
X. Tbb Dismantling ot Titrkby 379
A. Thrace 379
B. Armenia 385
C. Pantslamism 399
D. The New Anatolia 412
E. The New Arabia 433
XL Nationality, Esoploitation and Strong Government
IN Persia ..•..••
uXIL Natignauty and Sovereignty
Appbndix on the Map op Europe • • • . 501
Index •••••»••• 513
449 /
LIST OF MAPS
IN THE TEXT
The Kiel Canal Fatmtpaie 48
The Dahube Page 105
The TRBmxiio ^ 260
ft
HAP.
IN COLOURS
L The Frahoo-Gebuan Frontier
IL POLAIID * • • •
IIL The Sodtbebn Slavs •
IV. The Balkans
V. The HnvTEKLAND of Okssa
VL TtaE Nearer East
VIL The NAnoNALrms of Europe
Fadttg page 41
51
>»
$»
f9
167
303
zu
NATIONALITY AND THE WAR
CHAPTER I
THE FUTURE
For the first time in our lives, we find ourselves in
coniplete tmcertainty as to the future* To uncivilised
people the situation is commonplace ; but in twentieth-
century Europe we are accustomed to look ahead, to
forecast accurately what lies before us, and then to
choose our path and follow it steadily to its end ; and
we rightly consider that this is the characteristic of
civilised men« The same ideal appears in every side of
our life : in the individual's morality as a desire for
** Independence '" strong enough to control most human
passions : in our Economics as Estimates and Insur-
ances : in our Politics as a great sustained concentration
of all our surplus energies, in which parties are becom-
ing increasingly at one in aim and effort, while their
differences are shrinking to alternatives of method, to
raise the material, moral, and intellectual standard of Uf e
throi^out the nation* From all this fruitful, con-
structive, exacting work, which demands the best from
us and makes us the better for giving it, we have been
violently wrenched away and pltmged into a struggle for
existence with people very much like oturselves, with
whom we have no quarrel*
We must face the fact that this is pure evil, and that
we cannot escape it* We must fight with all our
strength : every particle of our energy must be absorbed
2 THE FUTURE
in the war : and meanwhile our social construction must
stand still indefinitely, or even be in part undone, and
every class and individual in the country must suffer in
their degree, according to the quite arbitrary chance of
war, in lives horribly destroyed and work ruined* We
have to carry this war to a successful issue, because on
that depends our freedom to govern our own life after
the war is over, and the preservation of this freedom
itself is more important for us than the whole sum of
concrete gains its possession has so far brought us*
Thus we are sacrificing our present to our future,
and, therein, obeying the dviUsed man's ideal to the
uttermost* But we shall only be justified in our most
momentous decision, by which we have put to the
touch the whole of our fortunes at once, if the path we
choose and follow is worthy of the sacrifice and the
danger we are incurring for the sake of it*
At present we are all working, according to our
individual capacities, for success in the war, but we
have little influence, even collectively, upon the result*
We have unreservedly put the control of it into the
hands of experts whom we trust, and rightly done so,
because it is the essence of this evil, war, whether the
veiled war of Diplomacy or the naked war of military
force, that its conduct must be secret and autocratic*
Naturally our thoughts are with the fleets and armies,
for we know that if they are beaten, we lose the thing
they are fighting for, freedom of choice; but we are
in danger of forgetting that, if we win, our object is not
automatically attained* If we read in the newspaper
one day that the powers with which we are at war had
submitted unconditionally to the Allies, we should only
be at the beginning of our real task* The recotistruc-
tion of Europe would be in our hands ; but we should
THE FUTURE 3
be exposed to the one thing worse than defeat in the
field, to the misuse of the immense power of decision,
for good or evil, given us by victory*
This is an issue incomparably graver than the
miUtary struggle that lies immediately before us.
Firstly, we are more personally responsible for it as
individuals. The war itself is not oidy being managed
by experts : it was brought upon us (the ** White
Paper ^' leaves no doubt in our minds) by factors outside
Ei^^d altogether. But our policy after hostilities
cease will be decided by our own government relying
for its authority upon the cotmtry behind it, that is, it
will be decided ultimately by public opinion. Secondly,
the state of war will have shaken our judgment when
we are most in need of judging wisely.
The psychological devastation of war is even more
terrible than the material. War brings the savage
substratum of human character to the surface, after it
has swept away the strong habits that generations of
civilised effort have built up. We saw how the breath
of war in Ireland demoralised all parties alike. We
have met the present more ghastly reality with admir-
able calmness ; but we must be on our guard. Time
wears out nerves, and War inevitably brings with it the
st^;gestion of certain obsolete points of view, which in
our real, normal life, have loi^ been buried and
forgotten.
It rouses the instinct of revenge. ** If Germany
has hurt us, we will hurt her more — ^to teach her not to
do it again.'' The wish is the savs^e's automatic
reaction, the reason his perfunctory justification of it :
but the civilised man knows that die impulse is hope-
lessly unreasonable. The ** hurt '' is being at war, and
the evil we wish to bann is the possibility of being at
4 THE FUTURE
war againt because war prevents us working out our own
lives as we choose* If we beat Germany and then
humiliate her, she will never rest till she has ** redeemed
her honour/* by humiliatii^ us more cruelly in turn*
Instead of beii^ free to return to our own pressing
business, we shall have to be constantly on the watch
against her« Two great nations will sit idle, weapon
in hand, like two Afghans in their loopholed towers
^en the blood feud is between them ; and we shall
have sacrificed dehberately and to an ever-increasing
extent, for the blood feud grows by geometrical pro-
gression, the very freedom for lAdch we are now giving
our lives*
Another war instinct is plunder* War is often the
savage's profession : ** * With my sword, spear and
shield I plough, I sow, I reap, I gather in the vintage*' ^
If we beat Germany our own mills and factories will
have been at a standstill, our horses requisiticmed and our
crops unharvested, our merchant steamers stranded in
dock if not sunk on the high seas, and our * blood
and treasure ' lavished on the war : but in the end
Germany's wealth wiU be in our grasp, her colonies,
her markets, and such floating riches as we can distrain
upon by means of an indemnity* If we have had to
beat our ploughshares into swords, we can at least draw
some profit from the new tool, and recoup ourselves
partially for the inconvenience* It ^ no longer a
question of irrational, impulsive revenge, perhaps not
even of sweetening our sorrow by a litde gain* To
draw on the life-blood of German wealdi may be the
only way to rq>lenish the veins of our exhausted
Industry and Commerce*" So the plunder instinct
m^t be clothed in civilised garb : ** War," we might
' TIk soQK of ItyboM the KiclML
THE FUTURE 5
eipress it, "' is an investment that must btwg in its
return/'
The first ailment against this point of view is that
it has clearly been the inspiring idea of Germany's
policy, and history already shows that armaments are
as unbusinesslike a speculation for civilised countries
as war is an abnormal occupation for civilised men.
We saw the efifect of the Morocco tension upon German
finance in xgiit a&d the first phase of the present war
has been enough to show how much Germany's com-
merce will inevitably suffer, whether she wins or loses*
It is only \^en all the armaments are on one side and
all the wealth is on the other, that war pays ; when, in
£act, an armed savage attacks a civilised man possessed
of no arms for the protection of his wealth* Our
Afghans in their towers are sharp enough not to steal
each other's cows (supposing they possess any of their
own) for cows do not multiply by being exchanged, and
both Afghans would starve in the end after wasting all
their bullets in the skirmish* They save their bullets
to steal cows from the plainsman who cannot make
reprisals*
If Germany vrere really nothing but a ** nation in
arms," successful war might be as lucrative for her as
an Afghan's raid on the plain, but she is normally a
great industrial commtmity like ourselves* In the last
generation she has achieved a national growth of which
she is justly proud* Like our own, it has been entirely
social and economic* Her goods have been peacefully
conquering the world's markets* Now her workers
have been diverted en masse from their prospering
industry to conquer the same markets by military force,
and the whole work of forty years is jeopardised by the
change of method*
6 THE FUTURE
Fighting for trade and industry is not like %hting
for cattle* Cattle are driven from one fastness to
another, and if no better, are at least no worse for the
transit* Civilised wealth perishes on the way* CXir
economic organisation owes its power and range to the
marvellous forethought and co-operation that has built
it up; but the most delicate organisms are the most
easily dislocated, and the conqueror, whether England
or Germany, will have to realise that, though he may
seem to have got the wealth of the conquered into his
grip, the total wealth of both parties will have been
vastly diminished by the process of the struggle*
The characteristic feature of modem wealth is that
it is international* Economic gain and loss is shared
by the whole world, and the shifting of the economic
balance does not correspond to the moves in the game
of diplomatists and armies. Germany's economic
growth has been a phenomenon quite independent
of her political ambitions, and Germany's economic
ruin would compromise something far greater than
Germany's political future — ^the whole world's pros-
perity* British wealth, among the rest, would be dealt
a deadly wound by Germany's economic death, and it
would be idle to pump Germany's last life-blood into
our veins, if we were automatically draining them of our
own blood in the process*
But issues greater than the economic are involved*
The modern ** Nation " is for good or ill an organism one
and indivisible, and all the diverse branches of national
activity flourish or wither with the whole national well-
being* You cannot destroy German wealth without
paralysing German intellect and art, and European
civilisation, if it is to go on growing, cannot do without
them* Every doctor and musician, every scientist.
THE FUTURE 7
engmeer, political economist and historian, knows well
his debt to the spiritual energy of the German nation*
In the moments vrhen one realises the full horror of what
is happening, the worst thought is the aimless hurling
to destruction of the world^s only true wealth, the skill
and nobility and genius of human beings, and it is
probably in the German casualties that the intellectual
world is suffering its most irreparable human losses.
With these facts in our minds, we can look into the
future more dearly, and choose our policy (supposii^
that we win the war, and, thereby, the power to choose)
with greater confidence* We have accepted the fact
that war itself is the evil, and will in any event bring pure
loss to both parties : that no good can come from the
war itself, but only from our policy when the war is
over : and that the one good our policy can achieve,
without which every gain is delusive, is the banishing of
this evil from the realities of the future. This is our
one supreme '" British interest,*' and it is a German
interest just as much, and an interest of the whole world*
This war, and the cloud of war that has weighed
upon us so many years before the bursting of the storm,
has brought to bankruptcy the '' National State/* Till
1870 it W3S the ultimate ideal of European politics, as
it is still in the Balkans, where the Turk has broken
Time's wings* It was such a fruitful ideal that it has
rapidly carried us beyond itself, and in the last genera-
tion the life of the world has been steadily finding new
and wider channels* In the crisis of change from
nationalism to internationalism we were still exposed to
the pk^e of war* The crisis might have been passed
without it, and war banished for ever between the
nations of civilised Europe* Now that the catastrophe
has happened (it is childish to waste enei^ in incrimina-
8 THE FUTURE
tions s^ainst its promoters) we must carry through the
change completely and at once : we cannot possibly
afford to be exposed to the danger agam«
No tool, machine, or idea made by men has an
immortal career* Sooner or later they all run amuck,
and begin to do evil instead of good. At that stage
savage or unskilful men destroy them by force and
replace them by their opposite : civilised men get them
under control, and build them into something new and
greater* Nationality will sink from beii^ the pinnacle
of politics only to become their foundation, and till the
fotmdations are laid true, further building is impossible.
But the bases of nationality have never yet been laid
true in Europe* When we say that ** nationality was
the political ideal of the nineteenth century,'* and that
1870 left the populations of Etux)pe organised in
national groups, we are taking far too complacent a view
of historical facts* The same century that produced
a united Italy and Germany, saw out the whole tragedy
of Poland, from the first partition in 1772 to the last
revolt in 1863* Human ideas do not spring into the
world full-grown and shining, like Athena : they tnul
the infection of evil things from the past*
In the Dark Ages Europe's most pressing need and
only practicable ideal was stroi^ government*^ Strong
government came with its blessings, but it brot^ht the
evil of territorial ambitions* The Duke of Burgundy
spent the wealth of his Netherland subjects in trying
to conquer the Swiss mountaineers* Burgundy suc-
^ The expression " Strong Government " is used throughout this
book in ^e quasi-tedinical sense of " Government in which the
governed have no share." " Absolutism '* and *' Autocracy '* are
terms more usually employed, but both have acquired a sinister
connotation, and it is better to use some neutral word that implies no
judgment on what it denotes.
THE FUTURE 9
cumbed to the king of France* But the very factor
that made the Frendi kings survive in the struggle for
existence between governments, the force of compact
nationality which the French kingdom happened to
contain, delivered the inheritance of the kings to the
Nation.
The French Nation in the Revolution btirst the
chrysalis of irresponsible government beneath which it
had grown to organic life, but like a true heir it took
oiver the Royal Government's ideal : ** Peace within
and piracy without/' France had already begun
aggression abroad before she had accompli^ed self-
government at home, and in delivering herself to
Napoleon she sacrificed her liberty to her ambition*
Napoleon's only endurix^ achievements outside France
were the things he set himself to prevent, the realisation,
by a forceful reaction against force, of German and
Italian nationality* Nationalism was converted to
violence from the outset, and the struggle for existence
between absolute governments has merely been replaced
by a stru^e between nationalities, equally blind,
haphazard, and non-moral, but far more terrific, just
because the virtue of self-govenmient is to focus and
utilise human energy so much more effectively than the
irresponsible government it has superseded*
Naturally the result of this planless strife has been no
grouping of Europe on a just and reasonable national
basis* France and England, achieving racial frontiers
and national self-government early, inherited the Earth
before Germany and Italy struggled up beside them,
to take their leavings of markets and colonial areas* But
the government that united Germany had founded its
power on the partition of Poland, and in the second
Balkan War of 1913 we saw a striking example of the
10 THE FUTURE
endless chain of eWl forged by an act of national
injustice*
The Hungarians used the liberty they won in
1867 to subject the Slavonic population between
themselves and the sea, and prevent its union with
the free principality of Serbia of the same Slavonic
nationality* This drove Serbia in 1912 to follow
Hungary^s example by seizing the coast of the non-
Slavonic Albanians ; and vAien Austria-Hui^ary pre-
vented this (a right act prompted by most unrighteous
motives), Serbia fought an unjust war with Bu^aria and
subjected a large Bulgarian population, in order to gain
access to the only seaboard left her, the friendly Greek
port of Salonika*
Hungary and Serbia are nominally natiotial states :
but more than half the population in Hungary, and
perhaps nearly a quarter in Serbia, is alien, only held
within the state by force against its will* The energy
of both states is perverted to the futile and demoralis-
ing work of ** Magyarisii^ ** and ** Serbising ** subject
foreign populations, and they have not even been
successful* The resistance of Southern Slav nationalism
on the defensive to the agression of Hungarian
nationalism has given the occasion for the present
catastrophe*
The evil element in nationalism under its many
names, ** Chauvinism,*' ** Jingoism,*' ** Prussianism,** is
the one thing in our present European civilisation that
can and does produce the calamity of war* If our object
is to prevent war, then, the way to do so is to purge
Nationality of this evil* This we cannot do by any
mechanical means, but only by a change of heart, by
converting public opinion throughout Europe from
** National Competition ** to " National Co-operation***
THE FUTURE ii
Public opinion will never be converted so long as the
present system of injtistice remains in force^ so long as
one nation has less and another more than its due* The
fiist step towards internationalism is not to flout the
problems of nationality, but to solve them*
The most important practical business, then, of the
conference that meets when war is over, will be the
revision of the map of Europe* Merely to suggest such
a thing is a complete reversal of our policy during the
last generation* We in England have been steadily
shutttt^ our eyes to nationality, and minimising its
importance* CXur English national question was
settled long ago* Our geographical situation as an
island of manageable size gave our mediaeval Norman
and Angevin kings an exceptional opportunity for
establishing at an early date a strong well-knit govern-
ment* The nation became self-conscious when it
e^Kuided under the Tudors, and self-governing by the
political revolutions of the seventeenth century, a full
hundred years ahead of France* While France was
realising her nationality, we were passing through the
Industrial Revolution, and during the last century we
have been working, with rapidly increasing success
doling latter years, to adapt ourselves to our new
economic concUtions*
If we do not think about nationality, it is simply
because we have long taken it for granted, and our mind
is focussed on posterior developments; but it is
increasingly hard to keep ourselves out of touch with
other countries, and though our blindness has been
partly distraction, it has also been in part deliberate
policy* We saw well enough that the present phase of
the national problem in Europe carried in it the seeds
of war* We rightly thought that war itself was the
la THE FUTURE
evil, an evil incomparably greater than the national
injustices that might become the cause of iu We knew
that, if these questions were opened, war would follow*
We accordingly adopted the only possible course* We
built our policy on the chance that national feeling could
be damped down till it had been superseded in the
public opinion of Europe by other interests, not because
Nationalism was unjustified, but because it endangered
so much more than it was worth* Knowing that we
had passed out of the nationalist phase ourselves, and
that from our present political point of view war was
purely evil, we hoped that it was merely a question of
time for the Continental populations to reach the same
standpoint* Notably in Germany, the focus of danger,
we saw social interests coming more and more to the
front at the expense of militarism* We threw ourselves
into the negative task of staving o£F the catastrophe in the
interim, by a strenuous policy of compromise and con-
ciliation, which has been successful on at least two
critical occasions* Now that the evil has been too
powerful and the catastrophe has happened, the reasons
for this policy are dead* Nationalism has been strong
enough to produce war in spite of us* It has terribly
proved itself to be no outworn creed, but a vital force to
be reckoned with* It is stronger on the Continent than
social politics* It is the raw material that Utters the
whole grotmd* We must build it into our foundations,
or give up the task, not only of constructive social
advance beyond the hmits we have already reached, but
even of any fundamental reconstruction of what the
war will have destroyed*
Perhaps we might have foretold this from the case of
Ireland immediately under our eyes* Failure to solve
her national problem has arrested Ireland's develop-
THE FUTURE 13
me&t since the seventeenth century, and inq>nsoned her
in a world of ideas ahnost unintelligible to an English-
man till he has travelled in the Balkans* This has been
England's fault, and we are now at last in a fair way to
remedy it* The moment we have succeeded in arrang-
ing that the di£Ferent national groups in Ireland govern
diemselves in the way they really wish, the national
question will pass from the Irish consciousness ; they
will put two centuries behind them at one leap, and
oome into line with ourselves* The Dublin strike,
ocmtemporary with the arming of the Volunteers, shows
how the modem problems are jostling at the heels of
the old. Although '' Unionist '' and '' Nationalist ''
politicians could still declare that their attitude towards
the strike was neutral, the parliament of the new Irish
state will discuss the social problem and nothing else*
Ireland, then, has forced us to think about the problem
of nationalism ; and our Irish experience will be in-
valuable to us when peace is made, and we take in hand,
in concert with our allies, the national questions of the
rest of Europe* To begin with, we already have a
notion of what Nationality is. Like all great forces in
human life, it is nothing material or mechanical, but a
subjective psychological feeling in living people* This
feeling can be kindled by the presence of one or several
of a series of factors : a common country, especially if
it is a well defined physical region, like an island, a
river basin, or a mountain mass ; a common language,
eqsedally if it has given birth to a literature ; a common
tdiffoaf and that much more impalpable force, a
common tradition or sense of memories shared horn
the past*
But it is impossible to ai^e a priori from the presence
of one or even several of these factors to the existence of a
14 THE FUTURE
nattonality : they may have been there for ages and
kindled no response* And it is impossible to aj^^ue from
one case to another : precisely the same group of
factors may produce nationality here, and there have no
efiTecL Great Britain is a nation by geography and
tradition, though important Keltic-speaking sections of
the population in Wales and the Highlands do not
understand the predominant English language* Ireland
is an island smaller still and more compact, and is
further unified by the almost complete predominance of
the same Englisdb language, for the Keltic speech is
incomparably less vigorous here than in Wales; yet
the absence of common tradition combines with
religious differences to divide the country into two
nationalities, at present sharply distinct from one another
and none the less hostile because their national psycho-
logy is strikingly the same* Germany is divided by
religion in precisely the same way as Ireland, her
common tradition is hardly stronger, and her geographi-
cal boundaries quite vague : yet she has built up her
present concentrated national feeling in three genera-
tions* Italy has gec^aphy, language and tradition to
bind her together ; and yet a more vivid tradition is
able to separate the Tidnese from his neighbours, and
bind him to people of alien speech and religion beyond
a great mountain rai^e* The Armenian nationality
does not occupy a continuous territory, but lives by
language and religion* The Jews speak the language
of the country where they sojourn, but religion and
tradition hold diem together* The agnostic Jew accepts
not only the language but all the other customs of his
adopted countrymen, but tradition by itself is too strong
for him : he remains a Jew and cannot be assimilated*
These instances taken at random show that each case
THE FUTURE 15
must be judged on its own merits, and that no argument
kolds good except the ascertained wish of the living
population actually concerned* Above all we must be
on our guard against ** historical sentiment/' that is,
zgaixist arguments taken from conditions which once
eiisted or were supposed to exist, but which are no
longer real at the present moment* They are most
easily illustrated by extreme examples* lulian news*
papers have described the annexation of Tripoli as
** recovering the soil of the Fatherland " because it was
once a province of the Roman Empire ; and the entire
region of Macedonia is claimed by Greek chauvinists on
the one hand, because it contains the site of Pella,
the cradle of Alexander the Great in the fourth century
BX«, and by Bulgarians on the other, because Ohhrid^
in the opposite comer, was the capital of the Bulgarian
Tzardom in the tenth century a*d*, though the drift of
time has buried the tradition of the latter almost as deep
as the achievements of the ** Emathian Conqueror,'' on
wiiich the modem Greek nationalist insists so strongly*
The national problems of Europe are numerous, and
each one is beset by arguments good, bad, and indif-
ferent, some no more specious than the above, some so
elaborately staged that it reqtures the greatest discern-
ment to expose them* Vast bodies of people, with
brains and money at their disposal, have been interested
in obscuring the truth, and have used every instmment
in their power to do so* It is therefore essential for us
in England to take up these hitherto remote and un-
interesting national problems in earnest, to get as near
to the truth as we possibly can, both as to what the
req>ective wishes of the different populations are, and
as to how far it is possible to reconcile them with each
other and with Geography ; and to come to the con-
i6 THE FUTURE
ference which will follow the war, and is so much more
important than the war itself, with a clear idea of the
alternative solutions and a mature judgment upon their
relative merits*
To accomplish this we need a co-ordination of know-
ledge on a large scale, knowledge of history, geography,
religion, national psychology and public opinion* It
is a case for the collaboration of experts, but mean-
while an attempt to review the whole question, even if
there is no deep knowledge behind it, may, if honestly
made, serve at least as a plea for more detailed and
authoritative contributions*
The remainder of this book is an attempt to make
such a beginning* We will take a series of actual
political groups, some of them states with no national
basis, some in which state and nation roughly coincide,
some that are true nationalities at present prevented from
realising themselves in concrete form, and we will start
in each case by trying to understand the group's own
point of view* We shall find that it nearly always has
some justification, and is hardly ever justifiable in its
entirety* This need not make us pessimistic : it is one
of the commonest traits of human nature* Right and
Wrong are always a question of degree, and our next
step will be to criticise the case of the group tmder dis-
cussion, and estimate how far it is just and reasonable to
give it what it asks* In reaching our conclusions we
shall find ourselves evolving a scheme for the recon-
struction of that particular comer of Europe*
Such a reconstruction must be guided by certain
obvious principles*
(i*) It must be done with the minimum of territorial
or administrative chai^e*^ There is always a pre-
sumption in favour of the existing machinery, so long
THE FUTURE 17
as ft works, varying in proportioii to the civilisation of
At people concerned* In a civilised country the plant
€f self-government is elaborately installed, not only in
ihe material sense of public services and administration,
business concerns with capital invested in them, which
nust in great measure be wasted if they are broken up
aid reconstituted on quite different lines, but in the
more important psychological sphere of political habit*
There is a certain political value, for instance, in the
esprit de corps of the motley Austrian army, or even in
the still callow constitutional tradition of the Austrian
C^own*-lands' parliament* It is very hard to make
people work together, very easy to pull them apart
again. If they work together so badly that they bring
the whole organism to a deadlock, there is no course left
but to part them, and r^oup theni on other lines which
will enable the various elements to function more
smoothly* But we must never forget that the negative
work of demolishii^ what other men have spent their
labour in building up, even if it be a Bastille, is at best a
regrettable necessity*
(ii*) In the last resort there must always be minorities
that suffer* This must be so if men are not to let
difference of opinion prevent them workii^ together,
and co-operation in spite of disagreement is the
foundation of politics* We can only secure that the
minorities are as small and the suffering as mild as
possible* This again is a question of degree* In
Macedonia, until the year before last, one Turk with
one rifle caused a ** minority *' of a hundred Christians
with no rifles to suffer robbery, rape, and murder*
Every one ^^es that this was an abomination* In
Great Britain at the present moment the numerically
small Welsh-q>eaking minority of school children have
i8 THE FUTURE
to learn English as well as their mother tongue, but the
English majority do not learn Welsh. Here we have
'* suffering '" or disadvantage to one party, without
injustice : the Welsh child does not learn English
because it is the English-speaking majority's interest
that he should do so, but because it is his own. His
only quarrel is with the fact that the English population
is much larger than his, and its language much more
widely spoken, and it is as useless to quarrel with £acts
as it is to beat the sea and bind it in chains.
I^The Irish question has produced a rich crop of mis-
guided arguments on both sides. First came the
skirmishes of ** historical sentiment.*' The Unionists
wished to keep everything as it was ** because Ireland
has been conquered by England, and united thereby
to the English Kingdom.'' They were silenced by the
outstanding fact that the Catholic Irish are a separate
nationality, but not content with this, the Nationalists
declared that the whole island was the herits^e of the
** Irish nation," with the deplorable result that the
Ulster Protestants made good their objection by threats
of force. Now the Protestants in turn are trying to grab
more than their share by maintaining that Ulster is ** one
and indivisible," in defiance of the fact that the territory
** Ulster " as such has no organic life, or in other words
no nationality, of its own. This is mere encouragement
to Nationalists to claim all Ulster counties complete
where there are Catholic majorities, though one comer
of them may be entirely Protestant in population.
The only way out is for both parties to face the fact
that there are two nationalities in Ireland, English-
speaking Protestants and English-speaking Catholics,
which in the greater part of the island form uniform
populations covering continuous territories; but that
THE FUTURE 19
there is an irreducible zone, especially in County Tyrone,
ivhere the two nations are inextricably minc;led, not
only Catholic village interspersed with Protestant, but
Cadiolic and Protestant householders occupying
akemate premises in the same town* Even here the
territories justly belonging to each nation could be
plotted out to a nicety on a big-scale map, but it would be
quite impossible to draw a frontier of equal delicacy
for the practical purposes of public service and self-
government*
With the growth of civilisation the human and the
terxitDrial unit become less and less identical* In a
primitive community the members are tmdifferentiated
from one another : the true human unit is the total
group, and not the individual, and the territory this
group occupies is a unit too, self-sufficing and cut off
from intercourse with the next valley* In modem
Europe every sub-group and every individual has
developed a ** character "' or ** individuality "' of its own
which must have free play ; while the growth of com-
munications, elaboration of organisation,, and economic
interdependence of the whole world have broken down
the barriers between region and region* The minimum
territorial block that can be organised efficiently as a
separate political unit according to modem standards
is constantly growing in size : the maximum human
group which can hold together without serious internal
divergence is as steadily diminishing*
This would look like an impasse, were it not corrected
by the virtues of civilisation itself* We started with
the fact that the essence of civilisation was ** Fore-
thought ** and its ideal the ** power of free choice '' :
the complementary side of this ideal, on the principle
** Do as you would be done by,'^ is to allow free choice
ao THE FUTURE
to others when they are in your power. It is a virtue
with as many names as there are spheres of human life :
•* Forbearance/^ '* Toleration/' ^* Constitutionalisnu''
When we have drawn our frontier through Tyrone with
all the ixq^uity that Geography allows us, there
will inevitably be a minority left on either stde^ a
minority no map-makix^ can further reduce* Savages
wipe out minorities : civilised men take testimonials
from tfaem« The drawing of the frontier is only the
first step towards the solution of the Irish question*
It will truly be settled if the minorities find that the
disadvantage to which Geography puts them is more
than made up by the good-fellowship of the population
with ixdiich it yokes them* Then they will become as
strong a link between Catholic Ireland and Ulster, as
the ** colonies ** of business men, that voluntarily take
up their residence in Liverpool and Hamburg, are
between Germany and England*
Having stated these principles, which once more
draw our attention to psychological hcts as beii^ the
really important forces to whidi all concrete, mechanical
manipulations of frontiers and institutions must be
referred in the end, we may now more safely plunge
into the great sea of European controversy* Let us
begin with the nation ^ose action has drawn us into the
vortex, Germany*
THE GERMAN EMPIRE ai
CHAPTER II
PRUSSIANISM : OR GERMANY'S AMBITIONS
A« The German Empire
The living generation of Germans is suffering for a
thousand years of history* They started in the raoe
to emerge from the Dark Age with a smaller fund
of civilisation than France had accumulated by her
thoroi^ Romanisation, and than the Norman con-
querors carried from France to England; and they
further handicapped themselves by the only Roman
tradition they did inherit, the ghost of universal empire.
The Hohenstaufen dynasty, Germany's chance of a
strong government, spent its strength warring in Italy,
on the impossible quest of bringing this ghost to life
again* When they failed, Germany fell to pieces into
a debris of principalities, of every size and character:
self-governing trading-cities, often more in touch with
foreign traders across the sea than with the serfs at their
gates ; Imperial knights, the landlords of these serfs,
ruling their estates with practically sovereign power;
prince-bishops, who governed some of the most civilised
districts of Germany in the valley of the Rhine ; and
lay princes small and great, from the Thuringian dukes,
whose dominions were subdivided equally among the
^irfiole male issue of each generation, to the strong
military lords of the marches, Brandenburg and Austria,
and the compact, steadily-growing duchy of Bavaria*
When the Reformation brought religious war, even
unified France and England were riven by the conflict :
German particularism fought out the issue to an incon-
22 PRUSSIANISM
dtisive compromise in the devastating War of
Years, which paralysed the growth of Germany for
a century, just when England was workii^ out her
internal self-government and preparing for the immense
development of her colonies and industry* During the
Thirty Years' War Germany's consolidated neighbours
began to fish in her troubled waters : in the eighteenth
century she had become the plaything of the powers,
her principalities pawns in their game : at the end of
the century she fell completely under the dominion of
France, and had to endure the merited ridicule of the
conqueror for her particularism and its results, a
** second-handness ** and a helpless inert stoUdity*
This was the more bitter in that she was not merely
feeding upon memories of a past dawn that had never
become day : she was conscious of an immense vitality
in the present. While Napoleon was annexing or
humiliating her principalities, Germany was giving
Europe the greatest philosopher and the greatest poet
she had yet known, Kant and Goethe, while the succes-
sion of German masters who were creating European
music was represented by Beethoven* Germany was
already a nation : the spark had been kindled by
intellect and art* An intense desire followed to build
up all the other sides of national life*
Germany's striking defect was her poUtical disinte-
gration : this delivered her into the hands of the French,
who preached their creed with drums and bayonets*
Civilised Germany turned again to the ideal of the Dark
Age, which more forttmate nations had long realised
and transcended, a strong military government* An
organisation of just this type presented itself in the
kingdom of Prussia* Its nudeus was the march of
Brandenburg, the old frontier province against the
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 33
Slavs across the Elbe^ which had grown by conquest
Eastward and been united, after the Reformation, with
the colonial territory carved out by the Teutonic
knights among heathen Prussians beyond the Vistula*
Its history expressed itself in the character of the
population* The rather thin soil was well cultivated
by a hard-working submissive peasantry of German
settlers or Slavs conquered and Germanised, bound by
a system of serfdom little modified from the extreme
mediaeval type, under a ruling class of landed pro-
prietors who remembered that they had come in as
conquerors*
The government had all the virtues of European
absolutism. By the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury it had built up an administration and an army
extraordinarily efficient for the size and wealth of the
territory* Frederick the Great used this instrument
to double the extent of his dominions and raise Prussia
to the status of a European power*^ The debade at
Jena in 1806 and the unwise humiliations to which
Napoleon subjected her, only roused the Prussian state
to a thorough reconstruction : serfdom was abolished
and universal military trainit^ invented* The rising
of the Prussian population in 1813, when they cast out
force by force and broke the French power, really stood
for a national movement of the whole German people ;
and its success was achieved under the leadership of the
Prussian government* 1813 marked out Prussia as
the tool ixdiich was to fashion a new political structure
for Germany*
The transition Germany went through in this genera-
tion may be illustrated by the career of Stein* Inherit-
ing the sovereignty of an Imperial knight (his little
* Invasion of Sflesia, X74o*
34 PRUSSIANISM
principality was absorbed in Nassau during his lifetime),
he did not find his vocation therein, but took service
in the Prussian administration. He came to the front
after 1806, and was the inspiration both of the internal
reforms and of the war of liberation they made possible*
He was afterwards fired by the Romantic movement, and
devoted his old age to promoting the collection and
publication of documents for the origins of German
history, a historical interest that really looked towards
the future.
But the dibris of the middle ages could not be cleared
away in a moment, and the next fifty years were a period
of flux and indecision. Two factors were striving to
harmonise and never succeeding. On the one hand, the
intellectual and artistic growth of Germany was gather-
ing momentum : in music, philology, philosophy, and
theoretical politics the nation had not only found itself
but achieved the primacy of Etirope. On the other side
stood the political organism of Prussia, far stronger than
before, for the Vienna congress had greatly increased
her territory, and far more representative of Germany
as a whole, for she had exchsuiged the greater part of
her alien Polish provinces in the East for the German
Rhineland on the West, which made her a Catholic as
well as a Protestant state and the bulwark of Germany
against France. She used the fifty years to unite all
North Germany in her customs tmion ; but her ruling
class kept within its mediaeval traditions and only came
into hostile contact with the spiritual movement in
which German nationalism still concentrated itself.
The Prussian governing class aspired to rule Germany,
but it did not wish to merge itself in the growth of the
German nation.
These two discordant elements were welded together
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 25
by a genius, Bismarck* He persuaded the German people
that the Prussian machine alone could give them what
they wanted, and that to make the machine work
effectively they must conform themselves to its action :
there must be no more liberalism* He persuaded the
Prussian government that irresponsible absolutism
could only survive by ** giving the people what it wants/'
and that if it took the pltmge, from which other obsolete
institutions, like the Pope and the Hapsburgs, had
shrunk to their ruin, it had a great future before it*
He worked with titanic tools* In the blast-furnace of
three great wars with Denmark, Austria and France,
he poured the whole energy of the German nation into
the Prussian crucible, and successfully drew out a solid
mass of metal, molten in just the form he had intended,
the German Empire.
To those ^o look at his work from outside after a
generation has passed, it appears that the task was too
gigantic even for his powers* The metal shows a flaw*
The Prussian machine has not proved itself adaptable
enot^ : it has not learnt to understand and work for
the needs and tendencies of the German people* The
nation on the other hand has lost in success some of the
qualities it preserved in adversity, and taken a Prussian
alloy into its soul* Bismarck's harmonisation was
sovereign for achieving the immediate result he had in
view* If his material had not been men but stone, the
statue of Germany he carved would have been a monu-
ment to him for ever* But living material is always
growing, and those who work in it must direct their
eye less upon the present than upon the future*
Bismarck brought Germany into line with France
and England* Her national question was solved at last,
and she was free to throw herself into industrialism*
26 PRUSSIANISM
She threw herself into it with all that concentratton of
energy of which Bismarck had first mastered the secret*
Here was a new sphere where intellectual activity and
disciplined organisation might co-operate to give
German nationality expression*
The commerce and manufactures that Germany has
built up during the last forty-three years are among the
most wonderful achievements in history : there is a
vigour behind them that feels itself capable of inheriting
the whole Earth* Perhaps if the Earth had lain un-
tenanted for Germany to inherit, she would have found
salvation in the achievement, and Prussian principles
and German character might have hardened into steel
of a temper that Bismarck, in idealistic moments, may
have dreamed of*
But unforttmately the pleasant places of the Earth
were occupied already* The tropical countries that
supply Europe with raw materials her own climate
cannot produce, were in the hands of England, France,
and Holland: in the temperate regions arable of
receiving the overflow of European population, new
white nations of English, Spanish, or Dutch speech
were growing up, one of them, the U*S*A*, already
a world power, the rest guaranteed an undisturbed
development to maturity either by the United States or
by Great Britain* In the partition of the waste places
of Africa during the last twenty years of the nineteenth
century Germany took her share, but she got little by
it* Her tropical acqiusitions seem not to pay their way
from the commercial point of view, and the only colony
with a temperate climate, S.W* Africa, was vacant
simply because its soil was desert, while its one asset,
the good harbour of Walfisch Bay, had been earmarked
by Great Britain* In 1870 the Germans thought they
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 37
had at last buried their unhappy political past, yet
here in the new chapter they had magnificently opened,
they were suffering for history still* This has been more
than they can bear, and explains, though it does not
excuse, their foreign policy ever since* With the
brilliant success of the Prussian military machine fresh
in their minds, they ttumed to Prussianism once more
to accomplish their desire* Instead of purging out
the alloy ^en once the metal was cast, the new in-
dustrial Germany has become Prussianised through
and through*
In hoping to cancel by the use of military force the
grave initial disadvantage with which they started their
industrial career, they have made a miscalculation
that has brought evil upon themselves and all Europe*
The machine is entirely unadaptable to the new task set
before it* ** Blood and Iron ** could drive other nations
off German soil; they could even, in Bismarck's
handling, cause a great psychological revolution in the
political feeling of the German people* They could
not possibly be made fruitful for economic progress*
Economic advance can only be made by economic
effort* We are deeply conscious of this in England*
War as a constructive national activity is for us essentially
a thing of the past : between our warlike ancestors and
ourselves there is a great gulf fixed, the Industrial
Revolution, which has put us into a new environment*
In the effort to adapt ourselves to that environment we
are increasingly absorbed ; we more and more recognise
the vital importance of succeeding in this, and resent the
unremitting ** burden of armaments,^' the distracting
rumours of war, and now this destructive folly into
which we have really been drawn at last.
The retort is easy : ** Ei^;land has all she wants*
a8 PRUSSIANISM
She got it by war a century ago : now she wants to be
let alone to exploit it/^ That merely proves that we
have been more fortunate than Germany : it does not
prove that the same military method will produce the
same result now that the century has passed* The
conditions have changed^ and not, after all, in Germany's
disfavour* In spite of her bad start, she has developed
such immense industries that her town population has
increased at a greater rate than that of the U*S«A* dturing
the same period : she has won markets for her manu-
factures, not only in her own protectorates, but in the
colonies of other nations, and even in the homeland of
industrialism — Great Britain itself* The surplus of her
population, whose growth has even outstripped her
demand for labour,^ has found outlets, entirely satis-
factory from the individual's point of view, in North
and South America, where they already form a very
prosperous section of the population, and play an
influential part in the self-government of their adopted
countries* German enterprise has competed on equal
terms with French, English, and American in China and
Turkey, and obtained contracts that offer good invest-
ments for all surplus German capital for some time to
come*
This has been Germany's true victory in the en-
vironment of modem civilisation, and she has done it
all without moving a single gtm against her ne^bours*
She has not yet got abreast of England in wealth : that
is not the fault of living England or Germany, but of
dead history : but, so far as she has thrown herself into
> This is true in the sense that the home market for skSUd laboar
xs ghitted. But while the skilled Gennan is seeking new openings
abroad, the uoddlled Pole is drifting into Westphalia to do the work
for which the native German's standard is too high, so that the *«-—--
gntioii statistics at present otttbahttice those of EmigratJon.
THE GERMAN EMPIRE ag
the eoonoinic field, she has, by her own merit, gained
upon us to the utmost extent possible. Her only avoid*
able handicap has been the great Prussian fleet and army
miiich she has deliberately imposed upon herself* Their
creation, upkeep, and increase have steadily taxed her
economic growth, and their existence has tempted her,
in her foolish trust in their efficacy for her ulterior
objects, to risk all her real economic gains by bringir^
them into action*
This policy of Germany's has been an immense
mistake* It can work her no good, but it has a vast
potentiality for working both herself and the rest of
Europe evil. There is the sum of all evil in the fact
that by attacking the rest of Europe with arms, she has
forced us all to take up arms against her* It is only our
subordinate object to beat her, because we know that
if she beats us her public opinion will become more
convinced than ever that her militaristic policy was
right* But the converse by no means follows, that if
we beat her we thereby convince her of her error*
Masses of people are only converted from ingrained
opinions about complicated questions, if they have every
opportunity given them to be reasonable* It is always
tempting to refuse to be reasonable : if you are being
harshly treated, and at the same time presented with
unanswerable refutations of cherished beliefs, you
inevitably prefer to go mad rather than be convinced*
Our ultimate object is to prevent war for the future, and
the essential means to this end is to convince Germany
that war is not to her interest* We and the French
disbelieve in war already, but a minority of one can
make a quarrel, in spite of the proverb* The only
way to convince Germany is first to beat her badly and
dien to treat her well*
90 PRUSSIANISM
U we bitnwliarf her, we shall strengdicn the obsolete
ideas in her oonsdoastiess more than ever — pahsKps
no longer the idea of ** Phinder,^ but certainly that of
^ Revenge,^ which is much worse : if we deal ** dis-
interestedly ^ with her (thou|^ it win be in our own
truest interest) we may produce sudi a reacdon of
public optnion in Germany, that the curse of aggressive
mihtansm wiU be exorcised ficom her as effectively in
19x4, as the curse of pditical paralyse was exordsed
in 1870.
We have seen that Germany was led to pursue the
policy which has nilnrinaird in this war, by the oppres-
sive sense that her development was bong cramped by
the action of her nei^iibours. At first she conceived
their action as of a passive kind, as the mere automatic,
** dog-in-the-manger ** instinct of effete powers to ding
to possessions they had not the initiative to utilise, and
in ^^ch nothing but historical diance had given them
their vested interest : her own mission, she thought,
was to bend all her youthful energy and resolution
to the task of evicting them, in order to actualise all
the golden opportunities that they had missed* More
recently, however, since her methodical pursuit of her
aim has roused her victims to a sense of their danger
and stimulated them to concert measures for their
security, she has viewed their behaviour in a more
sinister light, as an active, though veiled, campaign of
hostilities unremittingly carried on to compass her
destruction ; and now that her ambition has combined
with this undercurrent of fear to predpitate her into
an aggressive war, so that she finds herself actually
engaged in a life-and-death struggle with these neigh-
bours whom she has envied, despised, and feared in one
oonq)licated emotion, she is more firmly convinced than
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 31
ever that the aggression comes, not from her side, but
£fom theirs*
We cannot dispel this obsession by discussions of
the past : the only aq^ument that has a chance of going
home is our action in the future, that is, the attitude we
adopt when we meet Germany at the coi^ess that will
fellow the war* Assuming (what is the necessary pre-
supposition of this book) that Germany has been
defeated, and that the settlement, in so far as it depends
on terms imposed by superior force, passes thereby
into the hands of the Allies, on what principles shaU
we govern otur clearance of acootmts with the German
Nation i"
One thing is dear : whether Germany's feeling of
constriction has good grounds or not, we must avoid
deliberately furnishing it with further justification than
it has already* It would be possible to maintain that
the oolotiies and concessions Germany has already
acquired give her room for expansion ample enotigh to
deprive her of excuse for her envy, not to speak of the
conduct by ^^ch she has attempted to satisfy it;
but even this view would be rash in face of Germany's
vehement conviction to the contrary* Germany is
likely to judge her own plight more tnily than we can,
and even if she has judged wrongly, her opinion is more
isapartant for our purpose than the objective truth*
To give the lie to this national belief by taking from her
even that which she hath, would be the surest means
of deepening and perpetuating her national bitterness*
Let us make the unlikely assumption that, before
the end of the war, every fragment of German territory
overseas wiU have come into our power: there will
certainly be a body of opinion in this country in favour
of retaining the spoils of war* ** The retention of Ger-
92 PRUSSIANISH
man S*W. Afirica,'' tfacy will say, ** is essential, firstly
in order to round off the frontieis of the Soodi African
Conunonweakh, and secondly to prevent for the future
the fostering^ from thin li^)^Tff» fef^tffj of thff disloyalty
against the British Entire, unfoctonatdy still rife in
the Dutch dement*''
But it will be a pervetse cure for Dutch disaffiwtian
to reinforce it by including a still more irreconcilable
German populatkm within the same mrnnrnnity, unless
we mean to abandon the liberal policy which has gone
so far towards wiping out the memories of die South
African War, and rule Dutdi and German alike with a
heavy hand« Such a disastrous course would lose us
Soudi Africa altogether, by a war of independenoe like
that wtddi severed from us the North American states,
the finest colonies we ever had. If, on die other hand,
we restore Germany her territory, and avoid disturbing
die natural development of our own South African
G>mmonweat]h by the problems involved in the
annexation, we shall see a new Soudi African nation-
ality grow up, which will first blend Dutch and British
into one people, and in process of time exercise an
attractive mfluence upon the temtones adjoming, vdien
they too have filled up with a vriiite population drawn
ficom their respective mother-countnes, and have
evolved a sqiarate life of their own* J£ German S*W.
Africa is not subjected to the South African Common-
wealdi now as a conquered province, she is more dian
likely to join the Federation, vdien she is ripe for self-
government, as an independent member of her own
free win, and so enridi the new nationality by adding a
German strain to the Dutdi and Engli^ ba^« When
diis happoasp the Soudi African federal state wiU take its
place by the side of Great Britam on the one hand and
L
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 33
Germany on the other as a separate political tinit^
absolved £rom the control of either, but inheriting the
tradition of cordial relations with each, and will become
the strongest bond of good understanding between them
instead of the bitterest cause of dissention*
The case of the other German possessions in Africa is
sinq>ler« They are not ** white men's countries/' and
do not adjoin any great self-governing member of the
ftitish Empire, whose policy and interest must be con-
sidered as well as our own : they all lie within the
tropical belt, and like most European protectorates in
those latitudes, profit their owner, if at all, as fields for
enterprise, sources for raw products, and markets for
manufactures^ Towards these too we may be tempttd
to stretch out a grasping hand. ** They do not even pay
their way,'' people wiU declare ; "" and she has not learnt
the secret of governing natives : it would save Germany's
pocket and her African subjects' hides, if we took over
the business instead of her* Perhaps Togoland and
Kamertm might be passed over; every country in
Europe, after all, has some little claim staked out on the
West African coast, and they are hardly worth picking
op : but German East Africa is another question ; and
think how satisfactory it wiU be to obtain an * all-^red
route ' for the Cape-to-Cairo Railway*"
Here we see the cloven hoof, and it is sufficient to
answer that the profit and loss of Germany's African
possessions is emphatically her afiEair not ours, that the
skill to govern native races is only acquired by experience
(we ourselves, for instance, bltmdered into our present
more or less satisfactory Crown Colony system through
an unhampered century of experiments in misgovern*
ment), while the all-red route, even if it ootild be
achieved without alienating Germany (and it would
34 PRUSSIANISM
be out of all proportion to obtain it at the cost of
the alternative), actually presupposes the continuance
of that national ants^onism which it is our object to
abolish* Not the monopoly of the chief trunk railway
of the African continent, but the co-operation of all
interested parties in its construction and utilisation,
will open die way to the international entente we hope
to call into being*
The most serious claim to German East Africa might
be lodged by the Indian Empire* The population of
India is sufifering from congestion at least as acutely as
that of Germany, and the East African coast that f^oes
India across the Arabian Sea, offers the obvious field for
her expansion* There has indeed been an attempt to
convert into a ** white man^s cotmtry ** the highlands
that, both in the German and in the English territory,
intervene between the coast and the great lakes ; but
the experiment seems to be in process of breaking down
in both provinces* India, then, might conceivably ask,
as a reward for her loyal aid in the present war, that
both British and German East Africa should be assigned
to her as a specifically Indian colonial area*
This, however, is asking for more than is in our
power to grant* We shall be ill-advised if we do not in
future offer the Indian citizens of our empire the most
favourable openings we can, at least in regions whose
climate renders them pre-eminently suitable for Indian
immigration, like our own East African protectorate*
We hope that our German neighbours on that coast will
do the same, and we might even point out to them that
the introduction of a civilised Indian population into a
cotmtry where there is little question of their coming
into competition with white settlers, will enormously
increase its economic productiveness, which is its para*
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 35
nouiit asset to the white nation to which it belongs*
Moreover^ British government in India is building for
the Future an immensely powerful Indian nation ; and
the exclusion of Indians from this territory would
involve Germany in the same conflict that already
threatens Canada and the U*S«A*, unless they modify
their poUcy in the meanwhile* But we must let our
action rest at that* The problem of Asiatic expansion
must be met primarily by every state concerned on its
own account* It is probable that they will find the
difficulty of its solution so great that they will organise
in time some international authority to co-ordinate their
policy on this question, and voluntarily submit them-
selves to its direction ; but the solution cannot possibly
be furthered by pressture of one individual state upon
another, exercised as the result of a victorious war*
Germany has another group of possessions in the
Pacific, and perhaps here she cannot succeed in coming
out of the war unscathed* Her Pacific territories have
little value as areas for settlement or commerce*
Kaiser-Wilhelmsland in New Guinea is the only one
of any extent ; several archipelagoes of small islands
only useful as coaling stations, and the notorious
fortress of Kiao-Qiao, planted like a piratical strong-
hold on the Chinese peninsula of Shantung, constitute
the remainder* They are not so much an Empire in
themselves as a strategical framework laid down for a
future empire of indefinite extent, and as such have
caused considerable uneasiness to the maritime states
in this part of the Pacific, especially to Japan our ally,
and to Australia and New Zealand, two self'^veming
members of our empire* The anticipations of these
nations with regard to Germany^s designs are revealed
by the tntrgy with which they proceeded to attack
36 PRUSSIANISM
these positions as soon as war broke out. New
Zealand struck at Samoa, Australia at Neu-Ponunem,
Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, and the Solomon islands, while
Japan undertook the severest task in the reduction of
Kiao-Giao. Japan will emerge from the war in posses-
sion of the latter place, and she has handed over the
Caroline and Marshall Islands, which she occupied in
the course of her operations, not to ourselves but to our
two Pacific Commonwealths.
The disposition of Germany's Pacific dependencies
will therefore not come into our hands at alL We may
ensure that Japan keeps to her declared intention of
consigning Kiao-Chao to its ultimate owner China, by
ofiTering to resign simultaneously Wei-hai-wei on the
other coast of Shantung, which we only leased as an
ofSset to Germany's coup in seizing Kiao-Chao; but
in any event Kiao-Chao will not pass back into
Germany's possession, and it is most unlikely that any
of the other territories in question will be relinquished
by their respective holders. Certainly Great Britain
has no authoritative power to procure dieir retrocession
to Germany, even did she desire it, and there is after
all no reason why we should deplore Germany's loss
of them. It will involve no corresponding loss to
her industrial and commercial prosperity, a German
interest that we mean scrupulously to respect and if
possible to promote, but will only cripple her design of a
militaristic world-empire, a German interest that we
intend, in self-defence, to remove from the sphere of
practical politics.
Great Britain's true policy, then, is to allow Germany
to retain all openings for peaceable, as opposed to
forcible, expansion afforded her by her oversea
dominions as they existed before this war broke out.
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 37
and we shall have a particularly free hand in die
decision of diis question, because the command of the
sea, and the world-wide naval operations it makes
possible, fall almost entirely within our province, and
not within that of our European allies* We must
furthermore give just as great facilities as before to
German immigration through all the vast portions of
our empire that are still only in process of being opened
up and settled, and we must urge our allies to adopt
the same principle with regard to the territories in a
similar phase of development which acknowledge their
sovereignty. We must also respect the concessions
which German enterprise has secured for its capital,
with such fine initiative and perseverance, in neutral
oountries of backward growth* We shaU find instances,
similar to the coaling stations in the Pacific, where
professedly economic concerns have an essentially
political intention — certain sections of the projected
Bagdad railway occur at once to our minds — ^and here
we may be compelled to reqtiire Germany to abandon
her title; but we must confine such demands to a
minimum* Both we and our allies must take care that
neither political panic nor economic greed induces us
to carry them to excess, and in every case where we
decide to make them, we must give Germany the
opportunity of acquiring, in compensation, more than
their equivalent in economic value*
If we meet Germany in this spirit, she will at least
emei^ from the war no more cramped and constricted
dian she entered it* This will not, of cotuse, satisfy her
ambitions, for they were evil ambitions, and could not
be satisfied without the world's ruin ; but it will surely
allay her fears* She will have seen that we had it in
our power to mutilate her all rotmd and cripple her
38 PRUSSIANISM
utterly, and that we held our hand. Once her fear is
banished, we can proceed to conjure away her envy : for
to leave her what she has already would prepare the
ground for an invitation to join us in organising some
standing international authority that should continuously
adjust the claims of all growing nations, Germany among
the rest, by reasonable methods of compromise, and so
provide openings for the respective expansion of their
wealth and population*
Such an international oi^an would replace the struggle
for existence between nations, in which each tries to
snatch his neighbour's last crust, by a co-operation in
which all would work together for a common end;
but many tangled problems strew the ground in front
of us, before we can clear it for such a construction.
The national foundations of Europe must first be relaid ;
and just as in the question of territories over sea the
decisive word will lie with ourselves, so in the case of
European frontiers it will lie with otu: allies, because
the war on land is their province and because the
national problems at issue affect them even more
directly than us*
This does not absolve us from the duty of probing
these problems to their bottom : rather it makes it the
more imperative that we should do so, inasmuch as
our influence upon their solution will depend principally
on the impartiality of our point of view and die reason-
ableness of our suggestions, and very litde on any power
of making our will prevail by mere intransigeance,
or by the plea of paramount interests* Great Britain
ought to come to the conference with very definite
opinions about the details of these problems, even at the
risk of annoying her allies by the appearance of meddling
with what is less her business than theirs* The Allies
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 39
have proclaimed to the world that they will wage this
war to its conclusion in concert, and that declaration
will not be difficult for them to observe : but they have
also implied that they will negotiate in concert the terms
of peace, and it is here that the separateness of their
positive interests, beyond the negative bond of self-
preservation, will be in danger of manifesting itself*
They have morally pledged themselves to a settlement
that shall subordinate their several, and even their collec-
tive, interests to the general interests of the civilised
world, and it is on this grotmd that they have claimed
the sympathy of neutrals in the struggle with their
opponents* To fulfil their promise, they will need all
the wisdom, patience and disinterestedness that they
can oommand; and the supreme value of Great Britain^s
voice will lie in the proposal of formulas calculated to
reconcile the views of the Allies with each other and also
with the relatively impartial standpoint of the non-
nationalistic element that happily obtains some footing
in all countries and in all strata of society*
The solutions we o£Fer, then, for the national problems
of Europe must not be conceived as demands which it
is in Great Britain^s vital interest to propound and
in her absolute power to enforce, but rather as sug-
gestions compatible with British interests, and capable
of acceptance by otu: allies* The satisfaction of all
parties on whom their translation into fact will depend,
is, however, only a negative condition : they must
further be governed by the positive aim of dealing im-
partial justice to ourselves, otu: friends and our enemies
alike* We must follow the principle that a "' dis-
interested ** policy ultimately serves the truest interest
of its authors*
The first problem that confronts us is that of the alien
40 PRUSSIANISM
nationalities included against their will within the
present frontiers of the German Empire* The settle-
ment after this war must bring justice to these popula-
tions by affording them an opportunity for choosing
freely whether they will maintain their connection with
Germany or no, and if not, what destiny they prefer*
When we have estimated the probable results of their
choice, we may proceed to consider what the effect is
likely to be on German public opinion, and look for
some means of cancelling the bitterness which cannot
fail to be aroused in some degree* But this is essentially
a secondary consideration* We have accepted the
principle that the recognition of nationality is the
necessary foundation for European peace ; and peace
is endangered far more by the unjust violation of the
national idea than by the resentment due to the just
reversal of the injustice, even if the wrongdoer be the
most potent factor in Europe and his victim the most
insignificant* We will proceed, therefore, to consider
in turn the national problems within the German
Empire on their own merits*
B* The French Frontier
The question of Alsace-Lorraine is insoluble S
it is treated as a controversy between France and
Germany* ** This land,"' the Germans will say, " has
legally remained German soil ever since Karl the Great
divided his empire between his three sons* It is true
that the French annexed it by a series of conquests in
the 17th and i8th centuries, but the German speech of
the major part of its inhabitants is a living proof of its
true ownership*^'
** Granted,'' the French will reply, ** that we won
THE FRENCH FRONTIER 4%
our title by oonquestt yet its recognition by innumerable
German governments in inntmierable treaties gave it a
validity at least as great as that inherent in Qiarletnagne^s
testament, before you wrenched it from us again by no
other right than a conquest of precisely the same char-
acter. If your present daims rest on ancient history,
why did you still leave us half Lorraine in 1871, for you
had no worse a tide to it than to the half you took i
You left it because you knew you could not hope to hold
down by force so large a territory as that« No, force
is your sole tide now, as you say it was ours before, and
the moment has come for our revenge/^
The two nations have bandied historical arguments
like these for forty*three years, without approaching
any nearer to a conclusion, because their pleas, though
mosdy correct in fact, are none of them relevant to the
sttuatkm* The question, indeed, only a£Fects France
and Germany in a secondary degree : the parties
primarily concerned are the inhabitants of the disputed
territory themselves, and their present will is the only
solution* But the autocratic regime on the Prussian
model, established in the ** Reichsland ** since its cession
to the German Empire, has assiduously suppressed any
attempts on the part of that will to declare itself, and
our first business, once this pressure is removed, will be
to oi^anise some machinery for ascertaining what the
people^s will may be«
We must, in fact, insist that a plebiscite be taken
throughout the Reichsland* Many people will treat
this proposal with cynicism : ** A plebisdte,^^ they will
say, ** invariably confirms the desire of the authority
tkit conducts it* A vote taken under the auspices of the
Allies would as certainly decide for union with France,
at one taken by the German regime before the war
43 PRUSSIANISM
would have declared for adhesion to the German
Empire."
This, however, assumes a sinister intention, when the
presupposition of the proposal is the desire on our part
to deal justice to all nationalities and a behef that it is
our interest to do so ; and it is clear that we are capable
of honestly conducting a plebiscite, if we will. A
more valid objection would be that, however honest our
conduct, our opponents would never credit the fact if
the result issued to our advantage and to their dis-
advantage, so that even the reality of free dioice by die
voters would not modify the resentment of their former
masters. The remedy for this would be that the
victorious party should evacuate the districts in dispute
altogether, and hand over the oi^anisation of the voting
U> some neutral power. It might even then be objected
that the forgoing decision of the war would necessarily
influence the decision of the vote, and this is probably
true ; but it will certainly not influence it automatically
in favour of the conquerors. All sorts of events, isolated
incidents of the war itself and the varied memories of
half a century before it, will affect the voters' judgment
more than the total sum of past history drawn by the
war's issue : in fact, this issue will be only one ai many
stimuli to the complicated motives that viJl go to make
up the final desire of the voting population.
A plebiscite, then, need neither be an unreality to the
voters nor seem so to the parties interested ; and just
as the will of the former is more important than that of
the latter, so the moral effect upon the voters themselves
of its true declaration is especially valuable. The great
merit <si the plebiscite is that it saves populations from
being consigned like cattle from pen to pen, a treatment
the more intolerable in proportion to the civilisation
THE PRENCH FRONTIER 4i
of the people that sufifer it, and little calculated, as the
case of the ** Reichsland *' itself has proved, to conciliate
them to the nationality with which they are thus
arbitrarily yoked*
The mere taking of a plebiscite will always go far
towards easing the situation : the real difficulty lies in
determining the practical method on which it is to be
conducted* Clearly the result will differ according to
the' size of the minimum unit within which a separate
poll is taken. If the votes of the whole population of
the Reichsland were polled, for instance, they would
probably produce a balance in favour of the reunion of
the whole unit with France, while at the same time a
smaller unit or units could have been detached from the
wbcie, which with almost equal certainty would have
declared for standing by Germany. But it is obviously
unjust that units capable of being separated out geo-
graphically and possessed of a local consciousness of
thdr own, should be denied the esqpression of their will
by artificial inclusion in a larger but inoi^anic mass.
The most important preliminary, therefore, to the taking
of a plebiscite is the definition of such minimitm areas,
and it is here that the impartial application of as much
objective knowledge as we can muster is most essential*
Many of the following pages are occupied by tentative
experiments in this direction*
The Reichsland ^ is shaped like a T-sqtiare with its
angle pointing North-East, and its two arms are sharply
divided by the barrier of the Vosges** The Western
ann stretches across the gap between the Vosges and
the Ardennes, and forms the transition between the
* Tbe total pofmlation was ifii$/xio in 1905, the Gcnnaii-speaktiig
dcfncnt oonstitutitig 85 per cent, of the whole*
•Sec Map L
44 PRUS5IANISM
plains of Northern France on the one hand and the
Prussian Rhineland on the other.
This district includes both French and German-
speaking populations, and a line drawn diagonally
aooss it from North -West to South -East, and
rot^^y coinciding with the watershed between the
Seille and the Saar, would indicate the boundary
between the two elements. It is certain that die
French-speaking section of the district^ would vote
unanimously for reunion with France, while the German-
speaking section, on the other hand, seems either never to
have felt, or easily to have lost, pohtical sympathy with
France, and to have become conscious now of solidarity
with its Northern neighbours of the same speedi,
further down the Saar and the Moselle. The areas
respectively inhabited by the populations in question
form compact blocks adjoining the countries with which
each is hkely to seek union, and the boundary between
them follows a line quite suitable for a military and
political frontier. Clearly, therefore, these areas present
two natural units within ^lich the vote shoidd be
taken separately, and the result of the polling should
decide definitively the fate of each.
The town and distria of ThionviUe (Diedenhofen)
ot^t perhaps to vote by itself, because here the
population is mixed and the decision correspondingly
doubtful, while its geographical situation would equally
permit its inclusion in either country. It is probable
that it will vote for the connection with France, and
this will certainly be the case with Metz, the great
fortress of purely Frendi population, at the junction of
the Seille and die Moselle ; with dl the villages and
townships of the Seille basin itself; and with the
■ About 15% of the total population of the whole Retdnland.
'i
THE FRENCH FRONTIER 45
tippet valley of the Saar, as far North as^ and including,
Saarbourg. The rest of the district is almost equally
certain to remain with Germany*
In the Western arm of the Reichsland, then, the
solution is fairly simple, but the Southern wing pre-
sents more difficult problems. This district, once the
province of Alsace, consists firstly of a lox^ strip rutming
North and South, bounded on the West by the summit of
the Vo^es, and sloping down on the East to the left
bank of the Rhine, and secondly of two passes, leading
through the Vosges, towards their Northern end, into
that Western arm of the Reichsland with which we have
already dealt* The more Southerly pass is commanded
by Zabem at its Eastern exit and Phalsbourg at its
Western, and is traversed by a railway and a canal,
connecting Strasbourg near the Rhine with Saarbourg
on the upper Saar, and ultimately with Lunelle,
Nancy and Toul : the Northerly pass carries a railway
from H^enau in the Rhine basin through Bitsch to
Saargemund.
The speech of this entire district, except for a few
communes high up in the Vosges, is German ; but the
sympathies of the population have remained persistently
alienated from the German Empire. This does not
necessarily mean that the Alsatians desire reincorporation
in the French nation ; there remains the alternative of
cutting their connection with France and Germany alike,
and during the last forty-three years there has been a
considerable party in the country which favoured such
a programme, pointii^ out that Alsace has suffered from
the quarrel between the big political units on either
side of her out of all proportion to her own local stake
in the issue*
It is by no means certain, however, that they are
46 PRUSSIANISM
imconqiromtsu^y detennmed to break loose from their
present ttnion with Germany. The notorious incident
that occurred at Zabern less than a year ago, advertised
the fact that Prussian military government was intoler-
^le, and that, so long as Alsace was subject to it, the
grant of constitutional self-government would remain
an empty formality ; but it might well become a reality
as a result of this war, and if Alsace had the opportunity
of entering the German Empire as an independent
member on an equal footing with the other states, still
more if she could enter it as part of a united Soutii
German state, strot^ enough to hold its own within
the Empire against the Nordi, there is strong reason to
expect that the bond of common speech would assert
itxlf, and attract her strongly to her Soudi German
brethren only parted &om her by the Rhine.^
On the other hand the crescendo and culmination
of Prussian brutality may have alienated Alsace from
Germany altogether, and made her feel that her salvation
lies neither in a problematical reform of the German
Empire's internal oi^ianisation, which she would have
little influence in promoting, nor in a precarious
autonomy, i^ch she could never defend by her own
resources, but solely in placing herself once more imder
the aegis of France, ^ere the gratification afforded by
her choice would ensure her a peculiarly benevolent
reception.
liie decision, then, of Alsace, or in other words her
nationality, is quite unpredictable, and the question of
method in oiganising the plebiscite accordingly assumes
here a special importance. It is clear, in the first place,
' EcDnomia, as well as Ungtugc, dnw Aliacx towards Gennany ;
ail ihe maikets tot bcr manufactuies lie down the Rhine, none of ihaa
Wcsi of the Vo^cs.
~1
THE FRENCH FRONTIER 47
that the probable decision of North-Eastern Lorraine
to remain within Germany would incidentally decide
the £ate of the northenmiost strip of Alsace adjoining
it on the East* If Saai^emund continued German, it
would not be feasible either from the military or from
the economic point of view that the railway connecting
it with the Rhine valley should become French, so that
if the rectified frontier of Germany crossed the Saar
not far North of Saarbourg, it would have to include
at least Weissenburg, Hs^enau and Bisdiweiler on its
way to the Rhine* The small minority of population
inhabiting this strip would thus inevitably staffer the
loss of their freedom of choice ; but the rest of Alsace,
that is, the Southerly pass and the whole country South
of it between the Vosges and the Rhine, would still
dedde its own fate*
The crucial question next arises : What tmits of voting
should be adopted in this area i Seeing that the decision
is so delicately balanced, it might be argued that the
units should be as small and numerous as possible,
and that every commune should be allowed to make its
own choice* Such a procedure, however, would in-
volve us in difficulties* Suppose Phalsbourg voted, like
Saa^emOnd, for Germany, while all the other com-
munes voted for France, it would be impossible
to give Phabbourg its way, because its fulfilment
would drive a German wedge across the extremely
important railway and canal connecting French Saar^
bourg with French Strasbourg ; or again, suppose that,
^idiile Strasbourg voted for France, Colmar and
Mulhausen voted for Germany, it would be geo-
graphically impossible to link both groups with their
diosen fa^erlands* In fact, Alsace itself is a minimum
unit* There are no suitable lines for a frontier to follow
48 PRUS5IANISM
between the Vosges and the Rhine, or between Phals-
bourg, Strasbotu^ and Mulhauaen ; so that, if we take
the pldnsdte by fragments of the district, we shall be
compelled seriously to tamper with its mult in order
to reduce it to a workable shape, and so nullify the voting
to the discontent of all parties. It is worse than useless
to take a vote unless it is meant to be definitive, and the
disappcuntment of a single large minority is a lesser
evil ^lan the disillusionment of many sm^ majorities.
Alsace, then, within the limits defined, must vote as
a single umt. We cannot foretell how the decision will
go, and the importance of the result, both for France
and Germany, is momentous. Only one thing is
certain, that die accession of Alsace would profit either
country little, unless it were compassed by the desire
and the initiative of Alsace herself.
C. The Danish Frontier
The question of Schleswig-Holstein > has not yet
been opened by this war, but we must not for that
reason neglect it, for the seeds of future war are there.
When the German Confederarion fought Denmai^ on
this account in 1864, the two provinces had long been
united tmder the Danish Crown, and the prize of victwy
was their cession as a single tinit to the conquerors ;
but the situation before the war, and the settlement
after it, were alike unjust, because this political unity
has neither a national nor a gec^rapbical foundation.
It was monstrous that the whole territory should be in
Denmark's hands, fcff 85% of the total population 'is
Gertnan ; but it is equ^y outrageous that the Danirii
minority of 15% should have been violently wrenched
' See map on opposite page. * Total population 1,504,000 in igoo.
1
THE KIEL CANAL AND THE BALTIC SEA
k
THE DANISH FRONTffiR 49
away firom their national state* The problem should
DOW be solved by allowing either province to go its
own way*
Holstein belongs entirely to Germany^ by nationality,
gec^raphy, and tradition* No Danish is spoken within
its limits ; it flanks the Right bank of the Elbe estuary
bek>w Hambu^ ; it contains the whole course of the
Kiel Canal, a vital artery of Germany's commerce that
gives her the necessary direct connection between
the Baltic and the North Sea; and even while
actually under Danish control, it always formed a
juridical part, first of the ** Holy Roman Empire **
and then of the ** German Confederation/' throt^h the
darkest days of Germany's political history* To sever
the connection of this province with Germany is un-
thinkable*
Schleswig, on the other hand, is predominantly
Danish in speech, and the plebiscite will almost certainly
show that the whole province (for it is one of those
minimum units that are not susceptible of sub-divi-
sion) is Danish in national sentiment* Geographically,
moreover, its links are as strong with the Jutland
peninsula as are those of Holstein with the German
continent, and the present Dano-German frontier is as
unnatural and meaningless a line as is the South-East
boundary of Holstein against Hamburg, Lubeck and
Mecklenburg* The true frontier of Germany and
Denmark does not lie at either extremity of the two
provinces, but between them* In sketching it, we
must compromise between racial distribution and
geographical necessity* The presumption in favour of
an existing line would suggest that we should simply
fdlow the historical boundary between Schles#ig
and Holstein, but unfortunately the Kiel Ship Canal
50 PRUSSIANISM
coincides with this along its Eastern section, and both
banlcs of the Canal must clearly remain within German
territory ; so that while still taking the estuary of the
Eider as the Western terminus of the frontier, we must
draw its Eastward course further North, and bring it to
the Baltic at the head of Eckemfdrde Bay, instead of the
left shore of Kiel Haven.
This hne, though it leaves to Germany a slice of
Schleswig in addition to all Holstein, which is in itself
by far the more populous and important of the two
provinces, still assigns to Denmark a small German-
speakii^ area, including the towns of Schleswig and
Flensburg, which cannot be detached ftom the Danisfa-
speakit^ unit.^ The sympathies of this tiny minority
will be revealed by the plebiscite. Probably the factor
of language will be outweighed by historiotl tradtttoa
and by the rigour of Prussian admuiistration, for which
the German nationality of the Prussian state, in which
Schleswig has been forcibly incorporated, is only a
theoretical compensation; but even if these German-
speaking Scbleswigers would prefer to remain within a
reconstituted Germany, they are one of those minorities
that must inevitably be sacrificed * to the exigencies
of get^aphical facts, for there is no natural, physical
frontier to be found that corresponds more closely than
the Eider-line to the actual frontier of speech.
In detail, then, and it is better to descend to detail,
for concreteness* sake, the new frontier should probably
run as follows : starting from the head of EckemfSrde
Bay, so as to assign the town of Schleswig to Denmarit
but to leave Eckemfdrde to Germany, it should make a
' With ig,ooo and 49/xx> iohabiunts respectively.
' Without prejudice to a possible guarantee, on the part of Europe,
of thdf natioaal culture and individuality.
■
\
I
T
THE POLISH FRONTIER
51
It ootifse for Suderstapel on the North bank of the
r, and follow the river the rest of the way to its
on the North Sea*
D. The Polish Frontier
is yet a third alien nationality in Germanyt
^les, and, judging by numbers at least, the Polish
lem is the most serious of all* There are over three
Poles within Germany's Eastern frontier* What
national desire of this important population i
situation in German Poland is different from
in Schleswig and Alsace-Lorraine* There is no
ident national state across the frontier for the
jected fraction of the race to join upon liberation :
whole nation is partitioned between three empires,
ly, Austria and Russia* The peaceful main-
of the statm quo in Europe meant for the Poles
(perpetuation of this calamity for an indefinite period,
ips for ever* The outbreak of war, the common
of their taskmasters, kindled for them a glimmer
hope.
0 The war brought offers of better treatment for
future from all three parties* In such an evenly
struggle the decisive adhesion of the whole
nation to one side or die other became of im-
ice, especially as their country was fated to be the
a of hostihties*
(fr) It brought them, however, no expectation of
»lele independence* Their oppressors are divided
die two camps, and the victorious party, which-
way victory declares itself, will certainly not relin<*
its hold upon territory already in its possessicm
the war began.
Sa PRUSSIANISM
(c) The Poles' possible gain from the war amounts,
therefore, to the creation of a united national state, enjoy-
ing internal autonomy, but incorporated in a la^er
political organisation. Any of the three powers wotitd
be williag, if the opportunity arrived, to make concessions
to the Poles already subjea to it, in order to attract
within its frontier upon the same terms the remaining
sections of the nation.
The Poles, then, can make a bargain on much the
same lines with either group. We have now to consider
which group is in a position to negotiate most favourably
with them.
Our ally Russia is the traditional enemy of the Polish
nation. The two peoples have been rival leaders of
die Slavonic world. Poland drew her culture from the
Latin West, and her peasantry remained staunch to the
Catholic Church ^ during the crisis of the Reformation :
Russia took upon herself the inheritance of the Byzan-
tine Empire, Since 1814 more than half Poland's
territory and population, including the national capital,
Warsaw, has been incorporated in the Russian &npire.
Accordingly, the national revolts of 1831 and 1863
were directed primarily, and in effect solely, against
Russian rule, and in the concerted repression which they
provoked from the three powers, the Russian govern-
ment has taken the lead. The most cruel symbol of
Poland's humiliation is the flaunting Orthodox Cathedral
planted in the chief public square of Warsaw.
The bitter hatred Russia had incurred from the Poles
was an opportunity for Russia's enemies. Austria,
realising that some day she would be drawn into a
life-and-death struggle with Russia over the question
of the Balkans, was clever enough to seize it.
' The hittofy of Poland and Ireland hai been parallel in many pamt>.
THE POLISH FRONTIER 53
The Hapsburg Empire, with its medley of races,
oottld never convert itself into a ** uninational " state, of
the type to which nineteenth-century Europe was con-
fionmng : its true policy was to become a ** happy
hmStf,** in which various nationalities should live and
let live side by sidt. When the disasters of z866 forced
internal reconstruction upon the government at Vienna^
it miserably failed, on the whole, to realise this ideal : ^
only in the case of its Polish subjects did it carry its new
policy to completion* In 1869 the province of Galida,
Austria's share in the Polish spoils, was granted a fsu>
reaching measure of Home Rtile, and Polish was declared
the normal lat^fuage of its administration and higher
education*
These concessions* have made the Poles the most
byal citizens of the Empire* The Polish ** dub ** or
parliamentary block has practically become the ** govern-
ment party ** in the Austrian Reichsrath, on which the
ministry can always rely for the voting of supplies and
die passing of army bills. The Austrian Poles have not,
of course, abandoned the dream of national reunion,
but diey have learnt to seek it under the Hapsburg
banner, and their propaganda in the Rtissian provinces
serves Austrian foreign policy at least as much as the
cause of Polish nationalism* When the Russians
occupied Galida towards the beginning of the war, the
Polish population rose en masse against the invaders*
Their own experience will never commend to them the
diange from Austrian to Russian allegiance* The only
* See ch. m.
* It nmi be mcntioiied that this recognition of the Pdtah language
m Galkta Ut not only Gennan, which was fonnerly the univtnal
taoguap of official btaincs in the province, though it was only sp^en
b^ an magntficant piopoction of the population^ hut also the Rudicac
dalect of Ruanan, the native speech of nearly half the ' ' ' '
Set Ch. Vm* C
54 PRUSSIANISM
£actor that may modify their feeling is the Polish poliqr
of Austria's German ally*
Prussia, too, found her interest in fomenting the
enmity between Russian and Pole, but since, till the
last generation of the nineteenth-centiury, she was still
Austria's rival and had not yet become her ally, she
worked for the same object by supportix^ the opposite
party* She consistently played second fiddle to Russia
in the Polish concert, and at the same time contrived
to call the tune* Prussian diplomacy at Petersbu^
thwarted all attempts at a Russo-Polish reconciliation,
and then the Prussian military authorities lent a helpii^
hand to the Russian government across the frontier to
suppress those insurrections which the breakdown of
oondliadbn had stimulated* By their machiavellian
handling of the Polish situation, the Prussians secured
that their Russian ne^bour should have neither the
will nor the power to menace themselves*
In 1879, however, the German Empire transferred its
alliance from Russia to Austria, and the counter-alliance
between Russia and France, finally consummated in the
'nineties, made the breach irreparable* Yet while she
thus reversed her foreign policy, Germany entirely
omitted to correct her behaviour towards the Poles at
home, so as to bring it into line with that of her new
Austrian ally* Instead, she succumbed to the obsession
of nationalism, and began to chastise her Poles with
scorpions instead of whips*
In z888 the Prussian parliament established an
'^ Ansiedelungs-kommission " (Q>bnisation Board) for
buying up the land of Polish proprietors in the provinces
of Posen and West Prussia and plantit^; German setders
upon it* In 1908 the Board was even granted powers
of compulsory expropriation* Since 1872 pressure of
THE POLISH FRONTIER 55
the most eztxeme kind^ has been exerted to make
German instead of Polish the medium of instruction,
not only in h^er education, but in the local elementary
sdiools* In fact, the whole Prussian administrative
machine has been brought to bear against Polish
nationality within the German Empire, and in this case
its efficiency has been Germany^s misfortune* Russia's
intentions towards the Poles may have been equally
amister, but she lacked the means to carry them into
effect, and national sentiments are determined less by
motives than by results* Germany has robbed Russia
of the premier place in Poland's hatred. Her Polish
policy since 1871 has been as unintelligent as it was
astute during the fifty years preceding* She has called
down upon her head the enmity of both Poles and
Russians at once*
At the outbreak of war, then, the Polish national con-
sciousness hated the three powers in the following
order of intensity: Austria, Russia, Germany* It
remains to be seen whether the strong preference for
Austria over Russia will be outweighed by the extreme
detestation of Austria's German partner*
Several factors make it probable that this will happen*
Jn the first place there are the events of the war* The
war has already made it patent to the world that
Germany is the dominant partner in the alliance, and
Austria merely her tool* If, therefore, the Central-
European powers win the war, it will be Germany's and
not Austria's policy that will be imposed upon Europe
in general and Pbland in particular* Meanwhile, the
Germans have shown beyond all doubt what that policy
win be* They began, of course, like the other two
powers, by proclaiming the tmity and autonomy of the
^ Not stopping short of corporal punishment*
56 PRUSSIANISM
Polish nation ; but i^en they crossed the frontier to
make their word good, they dealt with the Polish sub-
jects of Russia, the nation's central core, not as friends
to be liberated but as a hostile poptdation to be terrorised*
The treatment of the frontier town of Kalisch was on a
par with the worst incidents in Belgium* Warsaw has
been shuddering ever since at the possibility of the same
fate overtaking her, and there has been something like
a national rising of the country people against the German
troops in occupation. Poles and Russians seem in
process of being fused together in feeling by the fire
of a common hate* They are stimtdated now by the
instinct to defend their united cotmtry against the
invader, but when the Russian armies cross the frontier
in turn, both the Polish and the Russian soldiers that
march in their ranks will respond alike to the ** Panslav "
impulse of rescuing the Polish minority in Prussia &om
the jaws of Pangermanism*
If, then, we and our allies are victorious, the erection
of an autonomous Poland within the Russian Empire is
almost assured, and it will include not only the former
subjects of Russia but the Polish victims of Prussia as
well* This will come about not so much in virtue of
the Grand Duke's proclamation, which tmder other
circumstances might well have left the Poles cold, but
becatise Germany's behaviour has put the Poles in a
mood to respond warmly to her opponent's overtures,
and to compromise with Russia in a spirit of ** give and
take*" The chief obstacle to an entente between Poles
and Russians was the memory of wrongs inflicted by
Russia in the past* These memories will be eclipsed
efifectively by the direct action of Germany in the
present*
There is also the permanent factor of Geography.
THE POLISH FRONTIER 57
The Russian provinces by their central position and their
great superiority in eactent to the Prussian and Austrian
fragments, are die necessary nucleus of a united natioiial
state. The same cause that made the Poles single out
Russia for attack when they hoped to restore their nation
to complete independence, will make them rally rotmd
Russia now that they have accepted the principle of
autonomy within a larger Empire* The victory of our
enemies would certainly ensure to the Austrian section
of the nation the hberties it already enjoys ; but in
promoting such an issue, the Galidan Poles would be
sacrificing the one chance of national tmity to the
preservation of their local Home Rule*
In making her bargain with the Poles, Russia has the
supreme advantage of being one and indivisible, while
on the other side there are the ambitions of two parties
to be satisfied* Whatever their professions, or even
their wishes, Germany and Austria cotdd never arrange
between them the erection of a tmited Poland*
The retmion of the whole nation within the frontier of
either one or the other is clearly out of the question, for
neither would surrender its own Polish provinces to its
ne^^ibour* A second possibility wotdd be the creation
of an autonomous Poland under their joint protectorate,
to which they shotdd cede their respective Polish terri-
tories* But though the Galidan Poles are perhaps a
strong enough power in Austria to compel assent to their
secfssion into the new national state, it is hardly con-
ceivable that Prussia would of her own free will relax
her grip upon her Polish districts* The German and
Mish poptUations on her Eastern frontier are desperately
intemiingled, and she still hopes to simplify the tangle
by the forcible Germanisation of the aliens* Moreover,
modi of the country in question is important, to her
58 PRUSSIANISM
strategically* A Poland manufactured under Austio-
German auspices would therefore be robbed from the
outset of at least three million of its citizens, no less than
17 per cent* of the whole nation ; and it is further pro-
bable that the government at Vienna, in order to maintain
the balance of power between itself and its ally, would
insist upon following Prussia's example, and success-
fully oppose the transference of the Galidan Poles
from their Austrian allegiance to the autonomous
principality*
In the event of Austro-German victory, therefore, the
promises of national restoration would result in nothing
but the grant of autonomy to the present Russian
provinces, which include no more than three-fifths of the
total Polish population* The new Poland would start
life a cripple, and even this maimed esdstence would
probably be short, for the situation thus created could
hardly be permanent. The emergence of a self-
governing Polish state in their immediate neighbourhood
would rouse the nationalism of the Prussian and Austrian
Poles to fever heat. They would be obsessed by resent-
ment at their arbitrary exclusion from it, and the
autonomous principality, in turn, could not ren:iain in-
different to their struggles. Gratitude towards Austria
and Germany, its Uberators from Russian rule and its
official guarantors against the reimposition of it, would
be eclipsed by indignation at these patrons' flagrantly
inconsistent treatment of its brethren within their own
borders. The national government at Warsaw would
begin to bargain, behind its '" protectors' " backs, with
defeated and chastened Russia for a genuine reunion of
the whole nation tmder Russia's banner. Berlin and
Vienna would get wind of the danger in time, and they
would forestall it by partitioning the principality itself
THE POLISH FRONTIER 59
and adding its dismembered fragments to their subject
provinces*^
Thus the failure to achieve national unity now would
after all compromise the local liberty of the Galidan
Poles in the future* Atistria^s Polish policy would be
degraded to the Prussian standard, not merely in her
dealings with the Poles formerly subject to Russia, but
m her relations with her own Polish citizens* The ideal
of Polish nationality would be shattered more cruelly
than it has ever been since the black decade that foUowed
the Partition of 1795, and this time it could hardly hope
to recover*
On the other hand, the victory of Russia achieved
widi die Pbles' co-operation, wotild restore liberty and
unity at once to all the Russian and Prussian districts,'
and when such a lai^e majority of the nation had been
consolidated into a self--goveming state, the reluctance
of the Galidan minority to commit itself could be
removed by a guarantee that it should forfeit none of its
constitutional liberties* It would then succumb to the
attraction of the greater mass, and fall away from Vieima,
with which it has no latent cohesion, to the national
centre of gravity at Warsaw*
The positive terms on which the new Poland will be
incorporated in the Russian Empire, must be the sub-
ject of a later chapter*' For the moment we may be
content with reaching the negative conclusion that, if
Germany is beaten in the war, her Polish subjects will
* The dfviwMi of spofls would probably follow the precedent of 1705,
whea Poland was triatd, for ten years, from the map of Europe. Tbt
Attitro-Pnissian frontier then delimited ran diagonally across Poland
from Soutb-West to North-East, following the course of the River
Pilfta^ and reducing Warsaw, the national capital, to the pontion of a
Fkmsian frontier town*
' A tefritocy roughly cotnddent with Napoleon's ** Grand Duchy of
it eiisted r
Wanaw,** as it eiisted from 1809 to 1813.
> See Ch. VIII. A.
6o PRUSSIANISM
vote to a man for k'beration from her dominion, and will
carry the Austrian Poles with them* It is one of the
ironies of history that Gahda, the best governed pro-
vince of Austria, should also be the province whose loss,
in the event of defeat, we can most confidently predict*
Austria will lose the reward for her righteousness in
Galida, in retribution for her ally's sins in Posen and
West Prussia*
The exasperation of national feeling on this Eastern
frontier makes it considerably easier to ascertain the will
of the populations concerned than on the frontiers
towards Denmark and France* We can assume, before
any plebiscite is taken, that every Pole desires secession
from Germany, and we must also keep it clearly before
our minds that every German in the disputed zone will
be still more eager to remain a citizen of the German
fatherland*
In seeking to compromise between the wishes of the
German and Polish inhabitants of these districts, we
must not let ourselves be prejudiced by the atrocious
policy of the Prussian government* A government's
actions are no certain test of a nation's fundamental
character: political systems come and go, and their
ideals pass with them, while the nation's growth main-
tains its even course* Let us foi^et, for the moment,
how the Prussian administration has treated the Poles,
and refrain from conjecturing how a nationalist Polish
regime might treat any German subjects it acquired,
but compare with open minds the relative culture of the
individual German and Pole* We shall probably receive
the impression that the German would suffer greater dis-
advantage by being annexed to a community of Poles,
whose standards wotild be lower than his own, than the
Pole wotild suffer by enrohnent as a German dtizent
THE POLISH FRONTIER 6i
wlitdi would be a kind of compulsory initiation into a
superior civilisation*
Of course compulsory conformity to an alien system
of life, even if the compulsion does not extend beyond
the sphere of politics, is almost equally distasteful,
whether the people whose citizenship you have been
forced to adopt are relatively more advanced than your-
self or more backward ; but in the present instance we
are in face of the situation that so commonly arises in
questions of nationality : a minority must inevitably
suffer*
The German and Polish poptdations along this frontier
are intricately interlaced* This is not due to the
modem activities of the ** Q>lonisation Board "" : their
result has been the stimulation of national feeling, not
the modification of national distribution*^ The racial
confusion is the gradual effect of four centuries, the
twelfdi to the sixteenth, during which the superiority
of German culture over Polish was so marked that
German speech and nationality were continuously push-
ing out their advance-guards Eastward at the Poles'
txpense, less by violent conquest than by ** peaceful
penetration '' at the summons of native Polish rulers*
This movement died down as soon as the Poles began
to overtake in civilisation their German teachers,* and
X Dimng the genentioo stnoe the Board's institution, the percental^
ol the peculation in Prussian provinces containing both nationalities
have persistently shifted in favour of the Poles. Ine Poles' birthrate
is much httjier than the Germans', and this gives diem a greater share
in the tDtafannnal increase. A higher birthrate is, of course, vympto-
mafic of a lower standard of life : ma sense the Germans are su£Fering
for their superior civilisation, and this eicplains why they tolerate ^
bttiMfous methods by which the Prussian government attempts to
riglit the balance*
*Li the sixteentfa century the Polish nobility was converted to
Calvudsni, and took a leadmg part in the cultural development of
Enrope. In the next century the Polish renaissance was submerged
by the Counter^Refbrmation*
62 PRUSSIANISM
the ** Q>bnisation ^' policy is an unjustifiable and im-
practicable attempt to set it going again by force ; but
by whatever process the various German enclaves have
come to be established on what was originally Polish soil,
their sole but sufficient tide is their actual presence there
now. In dealing with these awkward German minorities
we must eschew all historical arguments, and simply
start from the fact of their present existence*
Besides the intermixture of the two nationalities, there
is a further factor which limits the possibility of recti-
fying the Eastern frontier of Germany in accordance
with the wishes of the local population in the various
districts affected*
Our object in changing the poUtical map is to sift out
as large a proportion of the Polish element as we can
from the German, and free them from their present
compulsory association* If the hberated territories were
destined to be incorporated in an entirely independent
Polish state, we cotdd pursue this object without any
secondary considerations, but we have seen that the
Prussian Poles will break their association with Germany
only to effect a new association with Russia. We have
still to examine what form this partnership is likely to
take, but we can prophesy this much with certainty, that
the New Poland and Russia will have a common tariff-
system and a common military o^anisation : in the
economic and the strategical sphere, the Western frontier
of autonomous Poland will be identical with the Western
frontier of the whole Russian Empire*
No setdement would be permanent which left Geiy
many's Eastern flank strategically and economically at
Russia's mercy* Frontier-lines must be drawn so as
to enable the ootmtries divided by them severally to
lead an independent and self-sufficient life of their own*
THE POLISH FRONTIER 63
This is the first condition they must satisfy if they are
to have any significance at all, and an essential part of
** Independence "' is the capacity for resisting by force
of anas an armed attack on the part of the neighbour-
ing state*
This fact is unquestionably true at the present time in
Eampe, and our reconstruction after the war is over
mH be Utopian if we ignore it* We are all hopiag that
revulsion fiom war will lead to disarmament, and that
die military factor will cease to play in the international
politics of the future the terribly dominant part which
it has played in the past ; we are all agreed that the posi-
tive impulse to disarm can come from no calculation of
material advantage, but only from a change of heart ;
but we must recognise that this psychobgical conversion
will not be produced automatically by shutting otur
eyes to the difficulties in its way* We must at least
facilitate it by securing that it involves no material
sacrifices of prohibitive magnitude*
We saw that we could banish the struggle for existence
between nationalities only by solving national problems
and not by neglecting them. This principle applies to
the crudest form of the struggle, its conduct by the brute
violence of war* Nations will have no ear for the
gospel of Peace, so bng as they feel themselves exposed
to each odier's arms* The present war was precipitated
when several nations reached breaking-point in a long-
diawn agony of mutual fear* We shall not cure them of
mtlitaiism by placing them at each other's mercy more
completely than ever* War will only become impossible
when either party's ftontier has been made so invul-
nerable that the other abandons all idea of violating it*
U die firontiers of Be^tmi against Germany and France
had been as invindbly fortified as the Franco-German
c
64 PRUSSIANISM
frontier itself is fortified on either side, there would have
been no campaign in the West*
{In delimiting, therefore, our new frontier between
Germany and the Russian Empire, we must escpose
neither country to the other's strategic initiative (other-
wise we shall only accentuate their fears, and open a
new era of war between them, instead of dosing the era
that is past), and here we are confronted with a dilenuna,
for the existing frontier, though it grievously violates
the national principle, was negotiated with the precise
intention of producing a true strategic equilibrium*
This frontier dates from the Q>ngress of Vienna,
which resettled Europe in 1814 after the overthrow of
Napoleon* One of the main lines of settlement, upon
which all were agreed, was that Prussia should take her
share of the spoils in Western Germany, while Russia
should be paid off with those Polish provinces which had
been seized by Prussia and Austria in the last partitions,^
and subsequendy erected by Napoleon into the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw* Prussia stipulated, however, that
this principle should not apply to the districts of Kulmer-
land * and Posen, and insisted upon their inclusion within
her own frontier* She gained her point, because it was
universally recognised that her demands in this quarter
were bas^ on considerations of strategical necessity,
and were not prompted by territorial ambition*
The present frontier, dien, was admitted in 1814 to
be the minimum line which Prussia could defend success*
fully against Russian attack* We now propose to push
this line still further back towards Breslau and Berlin in
deference to the principle of Nationality, but we must
* 179^ and 1795.
'Situated on the Right bank of the Vistula^ and containing the
fortresses Graudenz and Thorn*
THE POLISH FRONTffiR 65
not allow our insistence upon true national frontiers to
Uind us to the strategic factor* Our final result must
be a compromise between the two principles, and before
we put the question of national allegiance to the vote
amoi^ the inhabitants of the debatable zont, we shall
have^ like the diplomatists of 1814, to lay down a limit
behind which the German frontier must not be driven,
even thot^ it may deprive considerable enclaves of
Polish popubtion lying within it of the right to choose
for themselves their own political destiny*
This limit imposed upon the new frontier will
seriously restrict the range of the Polish plebiscite.
Theoretically the vote might still be taken in the strip of
territory between the German minimum and the present
fitontier-line ; but in practice there would be a one-sided-
ness about such an arrangement against which the
victorious Poles and Russians would energetically
protest. A minimum has always a strong tendency to
become a maximum as well, and our allies will probably
accept the principle of the minimtun line only on con-
dition that Germans on the wrong side of it shall sufiFer
the same toss of free choice that the Poles must sufiFer
who are left on the opposite side.
In this case the situation would be exactly opposite to
that on the Franco-German border. There the tracing
of boundaries by the parties to the conference will be
simply a preliminary step towards constituting the local
population into groups, and the free vote of these groups
wiU then decide the fate of their respective districts*
In Poland, on the contrary, the plebiscite would be
eliminated altogether, and the new frontier definitively
constituted by negotiations between plenipotentiaries
of Germany on the one side and Poland and Russia on
the other.
66 PRUSSIANISM
The actual ootsrse the new line will follow must
depend lately upon the bargaining-power possessed at
the close of the war by the two parties, and is to that
extent unpredictable, but the transaction will not be
conducted by Germany and Russia alone. All members
of the Congress will take a hand in it, and Great
Britain^s influence as a mediator will be especially
valuable in this question, because she has absolutely no
direct interest in the issue* It is incumbent upon us,
therefore, to work out for otirselves a compromise vfbich
we can recommend, independendy of bargaining power,
as the best possible under the permanent geographical
and racial circumstances, and we had better frame
suggestions for a new frontier in some detail.
Our discussion will be clearer if we treat the extensive
line from the Carpathians to the Baltic in several
sections.^ We will begin with Silesia*
(a) The province of Silesia occupies the whole upper
basin of the River Oder* It forms a portion of the great
North-European plain, and its only physical frontiers
are the Riesen Gebirge Range on the Soudi-West, which
lies between it and Bohemia, and the Carpathian Moun-
tains on the South, which divide it from Hungary* The
country possesses two chief lines of communication with
the rest of the world : North-Westward, the Oder
descends to the port of Stetdn at the head of a land-
locked arm of the Baltic, the '' Haff '' : S.S.W., die
great Moravian Gap between the Riesen Gebiige and
the Carpathians opens a route to the Danube basin
which is traversed by several lines of railway leading
to Vienna*
These geographical factors have determined Silesian
history* Silesia was occupied about 600 a*d* by the
> See Map IL for all aections*
THE POLISH FRONTIER 67
Polish wing of the Sbvonic migration from the East,
which found no obstacle to its progress across the plain
till it struck against the mountains on the further side,
but five centuries later ^ the province detached itself
£n>m the main body of Poland, and ttuned its face in
the opposite direction*
The native princes were converted to German culture,
and invited German settlers from the Saxon marches to
ascend the vaUey of the Oder, just as the Gaelic kings
of Scotland introduced Teutonic ** Lowlanders ^^ from
across the Firth of Forth into the long coastal strip from
Fife to Aberdeen* By the end of the thirteenth century
Sksia, like Bohemia, had been drawn entirely within .
the orbit of Germany, and after the Thirty Years^ War
the two countries remained together under the sceptre of
the Hapsbturgs, who could easily control Silesia from
Vienna through the Moravian Gap* The Hapsburg^s
ritle to the province was challenged by the government
at Berlin, wliich ruled the lower course of the Oder and
so commanded Silesia^s North-Westem door* Exactly
a century after the Peace of Westphalia, the Treaty of
Aachen * settled the destitiy of the province in Prussians
favour by a partition, whidi left nothing to Austria but
the Southernmost strip* The frontier then delimited
between Prussia and Austria has never since been altered*
The Industrial Revolution has made Silesia one of
the most important districts in Europe* The Eras
Gehirge is rich in mineral ores, and there are immense
coal-seams in the plain. These assets have enabled
her to devetop great manufacturing activities, and the
new economics have further emphasised her essential
geographical unity * The industrial area extends imparti-
* XZfo A«I>.
* Z748, at the ooaduaioa of the *' Austrian Suooessjon ** War.
68 PRUSSIANISM
ally on either side of the Austro-Prusstan frontier, while
the focus of the ooal-district ^ lies just within the Prussian
frontier against Russia, near the point where the German,
Austrian and Russian Empires meet, and is continuous
with the mining districts of Russian Poland, from which
it is only separated by an artificial boundary*
The existing frontiers, then, do not eiq>ress economic
articulation, but they correspond still less to the bound-
aries of Nationality* The German colonisation up the
Oder never reached the head-waters of the river* Up to
a point between Brieg and Oppeln, slighdy above the
confluence of the Neisse tributary, the Oder is flanked by
a German poptdation on either side ; but above that
point, though along the motmtains the German element
stretches still further South, and even spreads into the
Moravian Gap as far as the water-partii^ between die
Oder and Visttda systems, the native Pole has main-
tained himself astride the actual course of the Oder, and
is in occupation of the river's Left bank as well as its
Right* Above Ratilx>r, again, along the highest reaches
of the Oder, the Pole is repbced by the Tchech* We
have to devise a new frontier which shall do more justice
than the present to national distribution, without running
violendy counter to economic facts*
The Western frontier of the Russian Empire and the
New Poland, or in other terms the Eastern frontier of
Austria and Germany, might start from the Hungarian
boundary on the summit of the Carpathians, at a point
just East of the pass through which the railway connects
Sillein (Zsolna) in Hungary with Teschen in Austrian
Silesia and thereafter with Ratibor in Prussian Silesia on
^The towns of Gleiwitz» Beutfaen, Kftnigshiitte,
Myslowitz form one practically continuous urban zone skirting the
frontier*
THE POLISH FRONTIER 69
the Left hank of the Oder* From this starting-point it
might run parallel to the railway, along the divide
between the Oder and Vistula systems, and continue
in a N.N«W. direction till it struck the Oder's Right
bank a few miles below Ratibor* It might thence follow
the Oder downwards to a point opposite the jtmction
of the H5tzenpl5tz tributary from the Left bank, and
dien take a straight line, slightly East of North, to the
Southernmost point in the province of Posen.
This frontier would exclude from the new Poland the
Polish popubtion on the Left bank of the Oder, but even
akmg this section of the Oder's course it is only the rural
population that is PoUsh : the towns on the river-bank
— Oppeln, Kosel, and Ratibor — are predominantly
German. If, moreover, we allowed Russia to cross the
Oder, and extend the frontier of her Empire right up
to the Erz Gebii^e, we should be transferring to her
die strategical command of the Moravian Gap, placing
Vienna at her mercy, and cutting the direct communica-
tion. East of the mountains, between the Prussian and
Austrian sections of Silesia.
We are proposing, on the other hand, to include in
'Polmd the extremely important mining-district of the
^ Five Towns/' Germany will doubtless protest against
this, on account of the considerable German population
that has been attracted to this area by the openings it
o£Ens for all kinds of employment ; but we can fairly
write off this German minority abandoned to Poland
against the Poles across the Oder whom we have assigned
to Germany. Moi^ver, the German element here is
not merely a minority, but actually a small and a decreas-
ing one. The mass of the miners and workers is
recruited from the PoUsh countryside, and the growth
of the PoUsh majority has already made itself felt in
TO PRUSSIANISM
politics. In spite of official pressure exercised upon
elections, the ** Five Towns ** now return Polish
Nationalist representatives to the Prussian Landts^ and
the Imperial Reichsts^*
The economic issue raised by the transference of this
district to Poland is not so simple as the national. By
driving a political frontier between these coal*mines in
the comer of Silesia and the industrial towns further
North-West, which at present consume their output,
shall we be ruining the prosperity of both i We may
answer that a political frontier need not imply an insur-
mountable tarifif-wall, yet if such a fiscal barrier were
to be erected in this instance, all parts of Silesia would
certainly sufiFer economically for the adjustment of the
country's national problem. Even in the latter case,
however, the dislocation would only be temporary.
There are coal-seams in the German portion of Silesia,
round Breslau, which could be developed to supply in
sufficiency that region's industrial demand. This would
of course deprive the ** Five Towns '' of their current
market, but they would rapidly find a new market
towards the East. A considerable manufacturing
industry has already grown up in Russian Poland, notably
in the neighbourhood of Lodz. It is capable of almost
limitless expansion, because the huge agricultural and
pastoral hinterland of Russia is its potential customer.
If the produce of the frontier coal-fields were diverted
from German Silesia hither, the expansion of Polish
manufacture would receive an immense impetus, and
would more than keep pace in its demand for coal with
the output the ** Five Towns *' offered it.
The frontier-line, then, which we have suggested in
the Silesian section, seems to stand the economic as well
as the nationalistic test. We may now turn our atten-*
tion to the section that follows.
THE POLISH FRONTffiR 71
(6) The pfovinoe of Pbsen is shaped like a flint arrow-
head, with its wings resting on the present Russian
frontier, and its point directed inwards straight towards
Berlin* Strategically, as we have seen, its control is
vitally important to Germany for her security. A
foreign power established in military possession of Posen
City could, from this fortified base, strike South-West-
ward towards Glogau on the Oder, and cut the con-
nectbns between Silesia and Berlin ; or it could strike
North-Eastward towards Danzig on the Baltic, and
oobte from the rest of Germany the provinces East of
the Vistula. If the Russian General Staff were given a
fitee hand in Posen, Germany would virtually cease to
be an independent power*
In Naticmality, on the other hand, Posen is predomin*
astly Polish.^ It is a wedge of alien population driven
deep into the German mass, and the consuierable
German minority is mosdy concentrated on the Northern
boaadary, along the River Netze. Isolated German
enclaves, however, are scattered over the whole area of
the piDvmce.
These advance-guards are not the fruit of the
** Cokmisation Board's ** plantations, which have hardly
succeeded in affecting the racial map : like their com-
patriots in Silesia, they are descended from German
burghers summoned by the native government in the
Middle Ages to civilise the cotmtry. Their history,
therefore, is above reproach, and even had the tide of
the original setders been doubtful, that would not have
warranted us in treating the present generation with
kss than justice.
Neverdieless, in so far as the destiny of Posen is to
' ^ "Hie populatioii of the provuice totalled x,987/x)o in 1905 : the
Midi demett mimbered over a miUkMu
72 PRUSSIANISM
be determined by the national factor, this dispersed
minority of Germans is not sufficiently stroi^ to retain
fDr Germany any part of the province but its Northern
fringe, and we find ourselves placed in a dilemma* If
we give precedence to Nationality, almost the whole of
Posen shotild be ceded to the New IV>land : if to
Strategy, then no portion of the cotmtry should be
detached from its present connections.
There seems to be only one possible solution of the
difficttlty* The overwhelmingly Pblish districts must
be incorporated in the Autonomous Principality, and
this means that they will come within the bond of the
Rtissian Empire ; but Russia in return must allow the
fortifications of Pbsen City to be dismantled, and must
undertake not to push forward her military line into the
new territory, but to keep it within the limits of the
present frontier.
Military conventions of this kind, which have no sanc-
tion behind them but the good faith of the contracting
parties, are best secured by being made reciprocal, and
the question of Posen might give occasion for a compact
between the Russian Empire and Germany of a much
wider range. Russia on her side might promise to con-*
struct no military works in any of the territories she may
acquire from Germany along the whole line from the
upper Oder to the Baltic : Germany might demolish, tn
compensation, all fortifications in her provinces East of
the Vistula, and withdraw her strategical front to the
line of the Vistulan fortresses.
Such an anangement would greatly diminish the
extent to which each country was e3q)osed to an 2ggctsr
sive movement on the part of the other. Of course it
would be in the power of either to break its word at any
moment, and fortify the neutralised territory within its
THE POLISH FRONTIER 73
own frontier, and this wotild give it a momentary
strategical advantage over its more honourable neigh-
bour; but fiortifications cannot be built in a day, and the
other would immediately retaliate by doing the same in
its own neutralised area. If, as we have suggested, fear
is a more potent stimulus of armaments than ambition, a
General Staff would be very reluctant to increase their
power of offensive against the rival nation, if they knew
diat the inevitable price would be similar action on the
other's part, which would correspondingly diminish their
own power of defence* A compact, therefore, which
strengthens the defensive capacity of both parties, has
the greatest possible chance of stability*
If such a compromise could be effected, the new
frontier might run from the Southernmost comer of
Posen along the whole Western boundary of the pro-
vince, to the point where that boundary hits the River
Warta. After crossing the river, the frontier should
dumge direction abruptly to slighdy North of East, and
take a course midway between the Warta and the Netze,
contintiing in the same line till it struck the Vistula
between Bromberg and Thorn. Tins would leave
within German territory the whole course of the River
Netze, and also the amal which links the Netze and
Vistula systems through Bromberg, and is one of the
principal inland waterways of Prussia.
(c) The lower course of the Vistula, from a point just
above Thorn to its mouth, runs through the German
province of West Prussia, which flanks the river on both
sides. West Pnissia, in spite of its name, is a com-
paratively recent acquisition of the Prussian kingdom.
It was only incorporated at the first Partition of Poland
in 1772* Before that date it had been Polish territory.
74 PRUSSIANISM
ever since Yagiellon ^ broke the power of the Teutonic
Knights at the battle of Tannenberg in 14x0 aj>.
In the manifesto addressed to the Poles shordy after
the outbreak of the war, the Grand Duke made a pointed
allusion to this historic victory/ and hinted that if the
Russians and Poles in concert carry the present struggle
to a tritunphant conclusion. West Prussia will be one of
die national heirlooms which he will restore to the new
Polish state.
The Pblish claim to the province has strong argu-
ments in its favour. The Polish element is hardly less
important here than in Posen*' The Germans are in a
majority, but they are concentrated in the great port
of Danzig, and only thinly scattered through the rural
districts* On strict grounds of nationality, a strip of
West Prussia on the Left bank of the Vistula, stretch-
ing all the way to the Baltic so as to include a small
extent of coast immediately West of Danzig, ought to be
detached from Germany, and added, just like the major
part of Posen, to autonomous Poland*
Probably this would not content the Poles. For
economic reasons they covet the fundamentally German
city of Danzig, and would therefore insist on a ** dean
cut ^* of the whole province, PbUsh and German portions
alike, although any such demand is of course refuted by
the National Principle itself. Yet the "" mangled slice,^^
as well as the ^^ clean cut,"" receives a categorical veto
&om Geography.
^ The first king who ruled at once over the Polisb and the Lithuanian
■ The reverse sustained a few weeks afterwards on this very spot by
die Russian armies in their first invasion of Trans-Vistulan G«nnatty,
has made the name less auspicious.
*At the German census of 1905 the population of West Prussia
totalled 1,643,000, of whom S^/Ooo (34%) were oflSdaUy admitted to
be Poles.
THE POLISH FRONTIER 75
The seizure of West Prussia is the most pardonable !
dieft Berlin ever oonunitted. It brought the solid bbck
of German population which had established itself
ftirtfaer afield in East Prussia round the intensely German
centre of Kfinigsberg, into direct territorial contact with
die main body of Germany. Even Napoleon, when he
beat Prussia to earth, did not venture to reverse this
inevitable outcome of the geographical situation. He
cut off Danzig and made her a free dty, but he left the
land-bru^e between Berlin and Kdnigsbei^ intact*
Now that the bpse of a century has cemented more
firmly than ever the union between West Prussia and |
die German lands on either side of it, we should be ill-
advised if we departed from Napoleon's precedent.
The German majority in the country would never
reconcile itself to Pol^ rule. They would hate thej
Russian Empire as bitterly as the "' Reichsland "' torn i
from France in 1871 has hated its German masters, and
the German nation, on its part, would never rest till it
had liberated its enslaved brothers and thereby restored
Its own geographical integrity. If every other ques-i
tkm in Europe had been justly solved. West Prussia! \
would suffice in itself to pltmge all Etm)pe into an- j
other war.
In view, however, of the Prussian Government's
Polish policy in the past, the large Polish minority in
West Prussia cannot be abandoned once more to the
mercy of German chauvinism. Germany's retention
of the province must be conditional upon a solemn pledge
on her part, to respect the Polish language wherever
Bpohtn witfain her reduced frontier, and in general to
allow such Polish citizens as still remain to her com-
plete freedom in the development of their national
individuality. This guarantee must be endorsed by all
76 PRUSSIANISM
the parties to the European conference. The national
ideals of the West Prussian Poles are to be subordinated
to a paramount interest of the German nation* It is
Germany^s part to see that the sacrifice entailed shall
be as lis^t as possible, and she must not be allowed to
repudiate her obligation*
Moreover, the exclusion of this half million of Poles
from their national state a£Fects not only the disappointed
fragment itself, but also the liberated Polish nation.
The new Autonomous State has a daim to compensation
for submitting to this national loss, and the account can
best be settled by an economic concession*
The Vistula is Poland's river* It rises on the Polish
flank of the Carpathians, both the national capitals,
Cracow and Warsaw, lie on its banks, and it is the
main artery of the country's commtmications* If the
lower reaches of the river, and the numerous Polish
population that dwells along them also, must definitively
remain outside the new political frontier, there is no
reason why Pblish traffic on the river should be barred
by a tariff-fence at this line* A further condition for
the retention of West Prussia must be imposed on
Germany* She must grant the new Poland free trade
down the Vistula to the Baltic, and throw open to her
Danzig, at the river's mouth, as a free port*
This provision is essential to Poland's future pros-
perity* Its extortion through military defeat may
wotmd the pride of the German nation, but its most
ardent advocates will be the great German business
firms at Danzig itself, who will be fully sensible of the
possibilities opened to them by this immense extension
of their city's commercial hinterland*
(d) We have still to discuss the frontier East of the
Vistula* The homogeneous German population of
THE POLISH FRONTffiR 77
Bast Prussia, compactly marshalled along the Baltic
coast between the Vistula and the Niemen, does not
properly come into question. In all Germany there is
no more German land than this. We shall doubtless be
reminded, however, that this inheritance was won for
Germanism not by the peaceful penetration of burghers,
like Silesia and the fringes of Posen and West Prussia,
but by the sword of the Teutonic Knights* ** The
Germans came here,"' the fanatical Germanophobe will
cry, ** by brute force : by brute force let them be
expelled again/^
If historical aq^uments must needs be answered, we
may point out that the folk they dispossessed were not
Poles nor even Slavs. The original Prussians belonged
to a separate branch of the Indo-European family, and
were kinsmen of the Lithtianians across the Niemen ;
but the German crusaders who set themselves to root
out heathenism from this secluded comer of Europe,
did dieir work so thoroughly that they annihilated the
heathen themselves together with their beliefs. No
native Prussian now survives to daim his ancestral
inheritance, and the title remains with his destroyers,
yifbo have robbed him even of his name, and raised it
from an obscure tribal appellation to be the official style
of the greatest political oiganism that Germany has yet
created.
The German-speaking region in East Prussia, then,
must be left on the same side of the frontier as before.
Its natural boundaries are sharply defined towards every
quarter, not merely by the Sea on the North and the
rivers that guard its flanks, but by the chain of the
Masurian Lakes, that stretches parallel to the coast, and
divides the district from its hinterland.
The Slav advancing from the South-East has never
76 PRUSSDINISM
penetrated this barrier* It sheltered first the aborigjaal
Prussians and then their German namesakes from the
Poles^ and in the present war it is provif^ itself a
formidable obstacle to the Russian armies ; yet while
Geography has made it the permanent strategical
frontier of East Prussia^ the political frontier has never
coincided with it since the setdement after Tannenberg,
but has kept to a quite artificial line drawn further in-
land towards the South*
The strip of country between this present frontier
and the lakes cotdd be detached from East Prussia with-
out a£Fecting the strategical situation, and it is inhabited
by a Pblish population, the Masurians.^ This is perhaps
the only unit in the whole of the Eastern £rontier-wne
of Germany to which the decision by plebiscite can be
applied, and we must not neglect the opportunity, for
we cannot predict a priori the choice the Masurians
will make, as we can predict that of the other Poles*
They have been united politically with their German
neighbours beyond the lakes for considerably more than
five hundred years, and in the sixteenth century they
foUowed them in their secession &om the Roman Church.
They have shared since then in the Lutheran culture of
Northern Germany* It is highly probable that tradition
will prove a stronger factor than language in determinit^
their nationality, but certainty will not be reached till
that nationality declares itself in the vote*
(a) As far as the Left bank of the Niemen, East
Prussia, with the possible exception of the Masurian
unit, will thus maintain its present connections* We
have still to consider the fragment of the province beyond
the river's further bank* This is the only portion of East
Prussia that ought undoubtedly to be ceded to the
^ Thty mmiber about 400^000*
THE POLISH FRONTIER 79
Ruanan Empire. The majority of the inhabitants are
Lithuanians, at present separated by an artificial line
£rom the mass of their fellow-countrymen on the
Russian side of the frontier. The only considerable
German endave is the port of Memel/ situated on the
exit from the '' Kurisches Haff "" or lagoon, into which
the Niemen debouches ; but we can write off against
Memel the Lithuanian endaves on the South bank of the
liver,' which we propose to leave within the German
frontier, and from the economic point of view Russians
datm to Memel is as strong as Poland's to West Prussia.
The upper system of the Niemen provides waterways
for the traffic of Russians Lithuanian and White Russian
provinces, and Memel is the natural point of connection
between this internal trade and the sea.
We can now suggest how the frontier East of the
Vistula should run.
Crossing the Vistula at a point between Bromberg
and Thorn, it should assign Thorn to Poland. The
possession of this fortress is strategically essential to the
new principality, for the present campaign has already
shown how a German force concentrated on the lower
Vistula can from this base strike towards the interior in
any direction. If Thorn remained in Germany's hands,
Poland would be exposed perpetually to a German
<^cnsive, and communication between Pdsen and
Warsaw might be cut at any moment. In Polish hands,
on the contrary. Thorn would not be a menace to
Germany, for the course of the Vistula below it is flanked
' Popoladon, ax/x)o in 1905.
■There are X07«ooo Lidnianiaiis in East PruBti altogether. In
S905 the totol poptilation of the province was 4/>3O/)0O. Since the
iM^*ri»wtm and Lithuanians amount together to about half a million, the
Ocraiatt block most total a milliott and a half.
8o PRUSSIANISM
by a series of German fortresses ^ all the way down,
lliis is the one instance we have encountered in which
the strategical factor outweighs the racial to Germany's
detriment and not to her gain, for Thorn is inhabited by
a German population**
Beyond Thorn the course of the frontier will be deter-
mined by the Mastuians' choice* If they elect to abide
by Germany, the new frontier, after skirting Thorn to
the North, will bend Eastward, and coincide with the
present line a few miles East of the fortress : if they
merge themselves in Poland, the frontier will head Nortfa-
Eastward towards the line of the lakes. It will run
just South of Deutsch-Eylau, Osterode and Allenstein,
and parallel to the railway that connects them. Then,
leavii^ LStzen to Germany but giving Lyck to Poland,
it will converge upon the present frontier where it is
intersected by the 54th parallel of latitude*
From this point the new frontier will in any case
foUow the line of the old, till it hits the Niemen* Thence
the Left bank of the river will form the remainder of its
course*
E* Prussian State and German Nation
We have completed our survey of Germany's
European frontiers, and have found diat, however con-
siderately we treat her, she cannot escape without very
serious territorial curtailment* Can we reconcile her
feelings to this necessary loss i
1£ we glance back at the cessions we have demanded
from the German Empire, we shall see that nearly all of
them are at Prussia's expense* In fact, our proposals
might seem intended as a deUberate reversal of Prussian
history* The acquisition of Silesia and the Polish
> Gfaudco]^ Maricttwerder, Mancobttcg* • 43/xx>*
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 8i
provinces first raised her to the rank of a great power*
The campaign against Denmark in 1864 won her not
only Schleswig but most of Northern Germany two
years later* The territory taken from France in 1871
did not become Prussian soil, but as the ** Reichsland **
it symbolises the hegemony over all Germany, which
Prussia attained through her French victory by the
fott&dation of the German Empire*
Those to whom V3t victis nuJces the paramount appeal
will here find a fresh opportunity to interpose* ** We
are now prepared to grant you/' they will say, ** that
in the Allies' settlement with the German nation, justice
and mercy may prove the best policy* Your hopes of
reconciling Gemuiny are not so fantastic as m^t be
supposed ; but the facts to which you have just called
our attention prove far more conclusively that you
cannot possibly reconcile Prussia* We therefore offer
you a general principle for your guidance* Spare
Germany by all means, but humiliate Prussia without
restraint* Destroy Prussia's hegemony in Germany by
libeiatmg all the German lands which she armexed in
18x4 and 1866* Make them independent members of
a truly federal Empire, and remove the diminished
Prussia's last hold upon the remainder of the nation, by
stipulating in the terms of peace that the Hohemoollem
shall resign the d^nity of German Emperor* You
cannot make your peace with Prussia : then you must
annihilate her with a ruthless hand*"
Our first reply to this will be that the interference of
foreign powers in a nation's internal affairs is the sove-
re^ means of weldii^ together that nation's most
dttooidant elements*^ If we ordered Hanover to secede
^ The nsoooi of Btmaick's policy is a commentaiy 00 this fiict*
He tndiioed fomgnefs to put wpikts into Gcnnan/s wheel, in ofder to
ose flicm himself as levels for upheaving German/s national sentiment*
83 PRUSSIANISM
firom Prtissia, the Hanoverians would for the first time
realise their pride in Prussian citizenship, and if the
Kaiser were bidden doff his Imperial Crown, Bavaria
would for the first time acclaim him whole-heartedly as
her war*lord* Instead of crushing Prussia by isolating
her from the German nation, we should most effectively
alienate the German nation by rallying it round Prussia.
So much is certain, but we can clear up the argument
more satisfactorily by thinking out what meaning the
name ** Prussia ** conveys to our minds*
Historically, the Prussian is the ** Squire from beyond
the Elbe,'' ^ a character in which we divine the feiodty
of the Borderer, the fanaticism of the Crusader, and the
dogmatism of the Protestant, while behind the squire
marches the peasant from his estate, who seems to have
no life beyond obedience to his leader's commands, and
to revert, whenever he finds himself leaderless, to the
habits of his barbarous ancestors in the days before the
squire appeared in the land.
Looked at from one point of view, the growth of
modem Prussia is simply the story of how this sinister
troop (hostility makes us distort their features beyond
the truth) has imposed its domination progressively upon
the whole German world, first stretching out its hands
from Elbe to Rhine to swallow up the North, and then
compelling the South to follow in its train* We picture
the ** Prussian drill-sergeant " fordx^ the too pliable
Rhinelander into his iron mould, and we feel that we
have been watching the deUberate depravation of a
nation's character. ** You may know Prussia," we
exclaim, ** by her fruits* Prussianism made the war, and
the war is a disaster for Germany and for the whole of
Etux>pe."
' Ost-Elbiischer Junker.
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY ^
This account of the matter is not so much false in
statement, though at best a gross exaggeration, as mis-
taken in perspective* The shadow from beyond the
Elbe doubtless darkens the country, but the shadow
will pass : the present situation is no more than a
historical survival*
If we ignore origins for a moment, and look at modem
Prussia as it actually is, we shall see that it is only another
name for North Germany* The present frontiers of
the Prussian state include samples of North German
society in all its varieties : world-ports like Danzig and
Kiel, scientifically developed agricultural districts like
Brandenbuq; and Pomerania, centres of twentieth-
century industrialism like Westphalia and Silesia* The
remaining states of North Germany may be as important
individually as the corresponding elements in the Prus-
sian OTgxDism, but the total sum of their population
and economic energy does not affect the balance in
comparison with Prussia's weight, and territorially they
are mere enclaves, emei^g here and there on the map
from the background of the Prussian mass*^
The most significant factor we have mentioned in
nxxlem Prussia is the new industry on the Rhine and
the Oder* We have already explained that the national
development of Germany during the last forty-three
years is due to the amazing speed and thoroughness
with which she has accomplished her industrial revolu-
Pmml area in sq, miles. Population in xgos*
^ Gcman Bnqnre 208,780 6o,64x/kx>
North Geraany : 166^x41 49,8o4»ooo
Pnaata I34»6i6 80% | 37#293#ooo 75% )
RemsdauiK >ofN*G* >ofN.G*
N* G. States 32,535 ao% I xa,5ix/)oo 35% I
The figuns for North Germany are obtained by subtracting the totals
of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg and Baden from the totals of the Empire, but
ffHinfiftg m^** Reichsland***
1 e<
84 PRU5SIANISM
tion. These two Prussiaii areas have been the actual
theatre of this Gennan achievement. Looted at from
die economic point of view, Prussia is not an incubus
whith has bstened itself upon the German nation's life,
but the most vital element of that life itself, which has
raised Germany to her present pitch of greatness.
The I>russian state may still be controlled by the
" Agrarian Interest," but the squirardiy is not tbe
factor in Prussia which enables her to control in turn
die rest of Germany. The German Empire is held
togedier by the hegemony not of the Eastern " mark "
but of the Industrial North. Westphalia and Silesia
are not merely typical elements of modern Germany :
they are the country's core. Junkerdom, the traditional
Pnusia of the squire, may still call the tune, but no
music would follow, if the resourceful, inde&t^ble
Prussia of the industrial workers were not there to trans-
late the demand into reality. Germany could never
have borne the cost of her stupendous armaments, if
the new Prussia had not all the time been disseminating
her manufactures through the markets of the world and
winning for her profits an ever-increasing proportion of
the world's surplus wealth : she could not have outdone
the armaments of Great Britain and France in quality
and elaboration as well as in mere mass, had not West-
phalia lent all her engineerit^ skill to manu&cture and
improve Germany's armaments, as well as to pay for
them. The new Prussia has virtually supplanted the
old even in her own peculiar sphere : the works at
Essen are the driving force behind the militarism which
we are combatting in this war, and the Krupps have
eclipsed as the exponents of Prusstanism tixe von
Bluchers and von Billows.
Hie future character of Prussia, then, will in no case
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 85
be determined by the military caste which originally
bttilt her up* Already they seem to feel the reins slip-
ping from their grasp, and to stispect that the creature
will one day be impelled to deny his creator* llie
future, however, belongs to Herr Krupp as little as to
his aristocratic godfathers* Behind the capitalist stand
the myriads of his workers. All over Etux>pe they are
coming to realise the services of their dass to the state,
and its potential power in politics, and they are resolv-
ing to conquer the position in society which is their
due ; but in Germany the dass-consdousness of the
Workers is even stronger, and their resentment more
bitter, than in the countries of the West, because
they are here thrust more ruthlessly into the outer
darimess*
It is certain that the German Workers will one day
come into their own* Krupp may still claim all credit
for the cannon and armour-plate, and hold his own
against his employees ; yet machines, however perfect,
do not constitute an army : its essence is always its men*
The German General StafiF boasts far more loudly of
its four million trained combatants than of its 42-centi-
metre guns, and the new industrial Prussia supplies the
bkxxl as well as the gold and the iron* The increase of
50% in the popubtion of the Empire, between the years
1871 and 1905, has been entirely urban* The new
industry of the Westphalian and Silesian towns pro-
duces the subsistence for these new mouths* The
industrial centres have become the main reservoir on
yAddi the General StafiF depends for its recruits*^
In a militaristic state, political power gravitates into
> Bcmhaidi, in Gtrmany and tfm Next War, diaciisacs this widiout
muting to realise its significance. He notes, and deplores, the foct
mat the townsman is not such sympathetic material for the Army as
the peasant*
86 PRUSSIANISM
the hands of those who bear the military burdens. It
has been hinted diat the forces which now govern
Germany, Capital and Privilege in coalition, actually
precipitated the war in order to forestall the outbreak
of die internal class-struggle and their own downfall.
Whether there is any tru^ in this or not, the social
problem in Germany will not be decided automatically
in this sense or in that by victory or defeat. An army of
workers, elated by a inihtary triumph and convinced
that it was due to their own organised endeavour and
sacrifice, m^t well make short work, after the war
was over, of the unscrupulous directorate which had
deliberately involved them in this fiery trial. We have
seen, on the other hand, that defeat followed by undia-
criminating humiliation might reconcile the principal
vicCtms to the schemers who were ultimately responsible
for both misfortunes. In either case the attitude
of die industrial masses will be the important boor,
and their state of mind, in the event of the Allies*
victory, will depend much more upon how we deal widi
them in the settlement at the close of hostihties than
upon the military results of the war itself.
Here the believer in external intervention will inters
nipt us ^ain. " I discern," he will exclaim, " an
infallible means of securing for ourselves the gratitude
and sympathy of this industrial class, whom you have
now proved to be the real Prussia of the future. I no
tenger propose to crush Prussia — I see that the Prussian
hegemony in Germany is synonymous with the natural,
unalterable economic supremacy of the North — but I
do advocate interventfon in the social evolution d
Prussia heiself. You say that the workers are bound to
gain the upper hand, let them gain it by our good
offices.
I
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 87
** The political monopoly enjoyed in Prussia by the
present ruling class rests on the reactionary structure of
the existing constitution. The direct manhood suffrage
by which the Imperial Reichstag is elected is in striking
contrast to the machinery of the Prussian * Landtag/
The present system dates from the Reform Bill of 19x0,
but the reform was illusory* It was virtually a reissue
of the constitution of 1851, and that in turn was intto-
duced as a reversal of the truly liberal charter extorted
from the autocracy in 1848*
^ In a Prussian constituency the electors are stratified
in three * property classes/ equal to one another in their
respective total taxpaying capacity, but most unequal in
the number of individuals they include* Each of these
numerically disparate groups chooses its own representa-
tive, but he does not sit in the Landtag : his function is
to vote at his own discretion for the actual deputy, in
conjunction with his colleagues* Thus the Prussian
franchise is both narrow and indirect* The Prussian
liandtag ^ is not a modem parliament : it is a medixval
"" The European settlement/' he will continue, ** offers
an excellent opportunity for sweeping away this political
anachronism* Let us stipulate in the terms of peace
diat the Pnissian constitution shall be liberalised at least
to the standard already prevailing in the South, in
Baden, Wiirtembei^ and Bavaria* Thus we shall bring
the true Prussian nation into belated control of its
own political destim'es* The standpoint of the Social
Democratic Party, debarred from practical expression
*Tbe House of Peeis would be an almost better illustration of
Pruwfan olifaschy* The hereditary members are reinforced by othta
created for hfe bv the king^ but a certain proportion of the latter are in
the nomination of tfie landed aristocracy from the eight senior provinces,
ta other ifocds ttut ** East-of-Elbe Junkers.''
88 PRUSSIANISM
heretofore, will make itself felt at last, and will inspire
Prussian policy with a new spirit*
** Moreover, this ' change of heart * (your own phrase)
will prepare the way for a further salutary modifica-
tion of Prussia's equilibrium* Formerly I proposed to
detach all the Uberal parts of Prussia from her irreclaim-
able core : now I st^est that we smother and soften
the core by reinforcing the fruitful fibres that surround iu
** You have pointed out that the non-Prussian com-
munities in Northern Germany are isolated survivals,
destined to ultimate absorption in their Prussian environ-
ment* Perhaps you have not sufficiently emphasised
the effect their assimilation will have upon Prussia her-
self, for their importance cannot be measured by their
territorial extent* There are the three Hansa towns for
instance* Hamburg is the second laigest city in the
Empire, even Bremen is b^ger than Danzig,^ and the
group as a whole conducts all the trade of the Elbe
and the Weser* The barren naval bases of Cuxhaven,
Wilhelmshaven and Helgoland are the only mark
Prussia's advent has made upon the North Sea ooast«
** You have related, ^ain, how the German national
consciousness was first fostered by German Intellect and
Art ; but if you call to mind the spiritual centres of
Northern Germany, you will half fancy that they have
purposely been boycotted by the Prussian frontier.
Drc^en^ Leipzig, Jena, Weimar, Gotha — not one of
them Ues on Prussian soil* Berlin has striven for a
century to array herself in their glories, but there is
^ Populations in 1905 :
Berlin 2|040/>oo
Hambturg 803^000
Bremen 3x5,000
Danzig loofioo
Ltibeck 94»ooo
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 89
a tradition in their very names which she cannot
plagiarise* Finally I will meet you on your own ground,
and remind you that in the industrial world Silesia and
Westphalia have not entirely outdistanced the older
manufactures of Saxony« Chemnitz can still bear com-
parison with Beuthen or Elberfeld.
^ The incorporation, then, in Prussia of the other
North-German elements will immensely strengthen that
industrial democracy whose triumph we wish to ensure,
^prfiile they on their part will find no grievance in such
change of status, if it coincides with a radical revision of
the Prussian constitution, guaranteed by the hand and
seal of Europe/'
There is far more wisdom in these suggestions than in
the pn^^nunme they supersede* The ** eradication of
Prussia ** hardly needed refutation, but the Uberalisation
of the Prussian constitution and the consolidation of all
Northern Germany within the Prussian state are clearly
essential steps towards a better future* In this instance
die end is not at fatdt, but only the means* We shaU
have to insist once more in reply that even the mildest
and most beneficial of internal transformations cannot
be effected by external pressure, that a ready-made
constitution has no more charm than a ready-made coat,
and that even if Industrial Germany accepted the
political costume we offered her, there would be no
telling in what fashion our gift would be worn : she
might even give it a militaristic turn, and disconcert us
by aping the ** drill-sergeants '' from whom we had
delivered her* Nevertheless, when these objections have
duly been filed, we shall probably admit that we have
sighted our desired goal, if only^some road thitherward
were apparent*
The upshot of our discussion is this* We hope £or a
90 PRUSSIANISM
fuwreadung dumge of equilibrium m Nordiem Gei^
many, but we realise that if we meddle with the scales
ouiaehns, we shall end by inclining the balance more
heavily then ever in ^e present direction. The
au^dous revolutioQ can only be produced by a
spontaneous internal raovenwnt.
Can we promote, or at any rate foresee, any issue
iriiicfa would rouse Northern Gennany to cast out
Pmssianism on its own initiative I*
We know the cause of Germany's devoted loyalty to
the military caste in the present war. She sees in tfaem
the champions of her nationality, the leaders in her
life-and-death struggle against a world in anns. One
thing alone would utteriy discredit the Prussian squire-
archy in German eyes : if, on some grave question of
state, die Junkers sacrificed the naticmal interest to the
interest of their own tradition.
We have seen that die keystone of Bsmarck's policy
was ibe creed that Prussia's and Germany's interests
were identical. He equated the unification of Germany
with the extension of Prussia's hegemony, but h^
doctrine had one stunU}ling-bk>ck to overcome : it
involved the exclusion from the national Bmpire of
one sixth part ^ of die nation's strength, the Germans
of Austria.
The settlement between Prussia and Austria after die
" Seven Weeks' War " of 1866 was a violation of German
Mfinmal tradition. Since the " Great Interregnum "
into vriiich the Holy Roman Empire fell after the niga erf
Frederick II. in the thirteenth century, German unity
had been little more than a name ; but die ghost of it
that lingered on had attached itself during the last four
Not oountiiig the Gennao-speakins Si
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 91
owmirigs to the House of Hapsburg, and haunted the
inqxiial city of Vienna* In 1866 Austria was banished
beyond the pale of the German world, and Prussia was
left in possession > Prussia had entered the arena of
Htstoiy only a century and a quarter before, when
Fxcderidc the Great challei^ed the Hapsbui^ suzerainty
iidierited by Maria Theresa, and the state's subsequent
career had been one long struggle with Austria for the
hegemony of Germany* For Prussia, therefore, the
events of 1866 were the consummation of her destiny :
the rupture of the old German tradition set upon die
new tradition of Prussia the seal of success*
Bisniarck's gmus reconciled Germany to the accom-
plished fact, and between the decade of Bismarck's three
wars and the outbreak of the present strug^e, the tution
grew and prospered so exceedingly under Prussian shep-
herding, that it remained insensible to the Austrian
brethren's absence from the fold ; but if Germany is
now defeated and shorn of her alien provinces, she will
remember once more that the Austrians are of German
bkxxi*
We have seen that to the ** traditional Prussian " the
bfli of Posen, Schlesw^ and Alsace wouki mean the
end of all the gtories, the levelling of the edifice built
by hts ancestors' valiant hands* Among the "" modem
Prussians," however, who constitute the industrial
world of Northern Germany, the misfortune would
awake no echo of sentiment, but only an anxious com-
putation of forces* To them the forfeiture of these
piovinces would betoken the weakening of Germany's
material power by so much territory, population and
weahfaf and the strengthening in the same degree of
mal powers on Germany's flanks, who had already
proved themselves more than Germany's match, and
93 PRUSSIANISM
who would be enabled by this he^tening of the odds
to hold her entirely at their mercy. They would respond
to the militansts' call for still greater armaments, not
^m motives of revenge so much as in self-protecti(»i
against a greater evil.
Such mi^vings would be set at rest completely by
the reunion of the Austrian Germans with the Emptce.
Even if every Alsatian, Schleswiger and Pole managed
to extricate himself firom Germany's net, the accession
of the Austrian block would more than doubly com-
pensate the loss. Germany would be placed beyond all
danger from her neighbours, and the North German
would have solved effectively the external problem of the
nation, without seriously oompromisii^ his internal
supremacy within it.
The economic primacy of Northern Germany is
almost certainly sufficient to outweigh Austrian Gennany
in addition to the South, but to make the continuance
of their hegemony sure, the Northerners would probably
take of dieir own free will the steps we so intensely desire.
The reinforcement of the Southern groups would give
Prussia and the Northern " enclaves " a strong mutual
interest of their own in consolidation, and this would
necessitate a preliminary reform in the Prussian
franchise, for Hambuig and Sazony would decline
membership of the Prussian state on the present terms.^
* tlw comolidatioii of the North woukl probably evoke ■ simiUr
niovcnuat on tbe port d the three Southern itates. Their umted
population in 1905 was only lofyjfioo and their ana, 43,649 iqiiare
division between lb* comolidatwl atatci of Nordi and South mnld
start from the Auatnan feuuki at the exttemc Notdi-West oonet of
Bohemia, and follow the present botudaiy between Bmm on (be one
hand and Saxony and the Thuringian princ^l^^i[iil on the oAei,
Thence ii would cut into what is now Pruman tenitory, paning ili^tly
SeaA of Fulda, till it hit Ae boundary of Hene-DamMadt (the
\
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 93
Thus the fntemal effect upon Northern Germany of
Austria's restoration to the Empire would immediately
prove fatal to the traditional Prussian ruling class. They
would have the choice of letting the reins drop quietly
fiom their hands, or of being overthrown ignominiously
in the effort to deflect the nation from its natural course.
The revision of the Imperial constitution would crown
tfaetr discomfiture.
Under the present system the supremacy of Prussia is
vested in the Imperial title and privileges of her Ifohen*
aolkin king, who is the war-lord and executive head of
the whole nation; but if the Hapsburgs return, the
Hbhenioollem can be suzerain no more* Bismarck
banished the Hapsburgs from Germany, because he
knew that they could never take a subordinate place
within it. H^burg and Hohenzollem can only come
into partnership agsin on terms of absolute equality.
TI10 does not mean the weakening of that unity with
wltidi Germany was endowed by Bismarck: it only
means that unity, will no longer be maintained by a
monarchical bond. The Hohemoollem will sink to be no
Ndrthctxi blodc of tbt pnnctpality). It would ootacide with this
hoandafy alooy its Southern segment, and break next into Prusnan
Naann, following the crest of the Taunus Mountains till it reached the
Kiiioe opposite Bmflen.
Tltti would assign to the South not only Kanau and Wiesbaden but
Fnnkftir^ the centre of German railways and finance, which has been
incorporated in Prussia since z866. By Geography the whole basin
of file Main beloogi to the South as well as the upper basin of the
Rhioe as £ar as Bingen and the Taunus, for at this point the united
sticam foemed through their junction pierces by a narrow dfifile a line
ofhtUs athwart its course, and enters a new stage when it emerges again
■io uie open*
Beyond the Rhine the boundaiy-line would owicide widi the present
a Palai
boundary between the Bavarian Palatinate and Rhenflh Prussia, as far
as tlie boundary of the '* Reichsland '* in the ne^bourhood of Saar^
oAady where it would take to the water-parting between the Rhme
and tlie Biowlk till it reached the frontier of France* The position
off the Ffaaoo-German frontier would, of course depend on whether
Alnoe united herself widi France or with this new South German unit.
94 PRUSSIANISM
more than oonstittttional sovereign of die new North
German state, consolidated under the Prussian title and
governed from Berlin : the Imperial Reichstag will gain,
correspondingly in scope and authority by diis relief
from monarchical concurrence* The national unity that
overrides federal particularism will thus receive in
Germany the same parliamentary expression that it
possesses in the U*S.A., and through this common
democratic organ the various groups within the nation
will be represented in the national counsels in strict pro*
portion to their several importance* On this principle
the North will preserve its leadership in Germany,
Germany will be freed from fear of her neighbours, and
Europe will be reassured as to Germany's policy in the
future* The ejection of the Hohenssollem from the
highest place in the Empire will be equivalent in
European eyes to a renunciation of Prussianism.
These are great expectations, but as far as Europe and
Germany are concerned, there is no apparent obstacle to
their realisation* Germany, however, is no more in
command of the situation than ourselves* Everything
turns upon the reincorporation of Austrian Germany,
and this lies in the hands of the Austrians alone* No
one can compel them to re-enter Germany against their
will, nor prevent them from doing so if they wish*
Will the Germans of Austria be moved to take this
step or no i Certainly they will not take it to oblige
Germany or Europe* Nations do not dispose of them-
selves upon altruistic motives* Austria will only seek
membenhip in the German Empire if she finds her own
interest in doing so, and obviously her interest will not
point this way tmless the restilt of the present war
upsets the statos qao even more momentously for her
than for Germany*
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 95
The regime under which the Austrians at present
live was established in consequence of the events of z866.
Neariy half a century has passed since then, during
wfaidi they have been perfecdy at liberty to change it
and adopt some alternative form of political organisation.
The £act that they have not done so seems to prove that
they will uphold, or at least tolerate, the existing system
until some stonger force intervenes*
The reasons for such an attitude are not obscure. In
the first place there is the factor of inertia* The present
Hapsburg Monarchy is oq^anised so elaborately and on
so large a scale that it possesses an incalculable momen-
tum. Enormous energy must be mobilised against its
mechanism before it can be brot^t to a standstill.
Even such a catastrophe as this war might fail to shatter
it, and one of its own elements would find the greatest
difficulty in dissolving its structure by a dehl>erate«
uwtfimulated exercise of will.
The change, moreover, would not only be diffictdt for
the Austrian Germans, but also positively to their dis-
advantage. If inertia has been the only restraint upon
their freedom of choice, it is because, during this half
century, they have been one of the dominant factors in
their own political enviroimient, with power, as far as
human will avaib in politics, to bind or to loose. By
txansferrmg their allegiance from their present society
to the German Empire, they would inevitably sti£Fer
in status, for we have seen that they would have to
yield precedence to the consolidated state of Northern
We may therefore draw the negative conclusion that
the Germans of Austria certainly will not enter the
German Empire, unless the Hapsburg Empire has
pceviously broken up, and that such a break-up could
D
96 PRUSSIANISM
only be caused by some external agency in their
despite*
This definition of what a break-up of the Hapsburg
Empire implies, may forestall an objection that must
long have been in the critic's mind. ** You talk very
glibly/' he will have been thinking, ** about reconciling
Germany by giving her two-fold compensation for her
European losses, but perhaps her conquerors may find
such conciliation dear at the price* Do you really
suppose that the Allies, if they finally beat Germany by
an exhausting war, will allow her to emerge even stronger
than before from the subseqpient setdement i '*
It is of course obvious that they will not, and the
objection is so &r cogent* It is not relevant, however,
to the case in question*
During the last generation, the states of Europe have
tended to play a less and less individual part in the game
of diplomacy and war* The coalition, not the sii^e
country, has become the unit of power* Germany's
military strength can only be estimated in terms of die
whole group to which she belongs, and, since the
German and the Hapsburg Empires have now been
partners in international politics for thirty-five years,^
we must for this purpose treat them as a single block*
It is true that the standard of social efficiency in
general, and of military organisation in particular, is
considerably higher in die German section of the block
then in the other, so that the transference within the
block of an important element from the inferior Haps-
burg system to the superior German would certainly
increase the power of the btock as a whole, given that its
total composition continued the same* If the break-up
of the Hapsburg Empire were merely nominal, and the
^ Since tBjg*
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY 97
group which had formerly cx)nsisted of Germany and
Aiistiia-cum-Hungary were reconstituted as Germany-
cum-Austria and Hungary, then our critic's comment
would be quite in point* The coalition would indeed
emerge stronger than before, with a margin of increase
that would cover the bss of a few border provinces, and
die Allies could not suffer events to take such a course*
This possibility is disposed of, however, by our con-
clusion that Austria will never merge herself in Germany
unless the other elements of the Hapsburg Empire do
break away from her in some real sense, and fly off at
a tangent both from the Hapsburg state and from the
German coalition. If this were to happen, it would of
ccmrse immeasurably lessen the total offensive power of
Germany and her group, and we could regard a con-
siderable addition to the individual strength of Germany
herself with perfect equanimity*
We are accordingly faced with the question : will
the War produce a radical break-up of the Hapsburg
Monarchy, and if it does, on what lines will the dis-
solution take place i
We shall then find a further question awaitif^ us*
Dnsolution, supposing we come to believe it probable,
will certainly cancel the factors which at present render
union with Germany tmdesirable to Austria, but it need
not inspire her widi a positive desire for it. If the
Hapsburg compleicus is loosened, Austria will find
herself released from old ties* She may prefer to con-
tract no new ones, and embark instead upon a phase of
independent existence* This is a contingency we shall
have to consider, before we can proclaim our Austrian
solution of the German problem as a certainty; but we
must not be over-hasty* We will try to deal with only
one questioci at a time*
98 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
CHAPTER III
THE VITAIITY OF AUSTRIA
Can the Hapsburg Empire survive the present crisis i
The question has been asked several times akeady during
the past oentury, and has been answered invariably in
the n^^ative, yet the Empire still exists, and is playing a
leading part in international politics at this moment*
Twice over Austria was utterly defeated and shorn of
eactensive territories by Napoleon, only to emerge in
18x4 with wider frontiers than she possessed in 1792*
For the next thirty-three years international statesman-
ship took its cue from the Atistrian Chancellor Met-
temich. Then the international revolution of 1848
overthrew Mettemich with bewildering suddenness,
and it seemed as though the Monarchy would vanish
with the diplomat who incarnated its ideals.
In this year it was bu£Feted from one quarter by the
full storm of Italian Nationalism, which had been brew-
ing for half a century, and now swept the people of every
Italian principality into a common crusade against the
alien master encamped on the Po« On the other flank
Tcfaechs and Magyars renounced all participation in a
Germanised state, and summoned the Hapsburg to
accept the crowns of independent Bohemia and Hungary
at Prag and P6sa9ony, unless he were willing to forfeit
their allegiance altogether* Even Vienna, the capital
and core of the Empire, rejected her native sovereign*
The fire of Liberalism set the Viennese popuhtion in
a blaze : they made common cause with the Magyar
Liberals further down the Danube, and the Enq)eior
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 99
Ferdmand retired to the loyal and conservative Tyrol.
At one moment the army of Radetzky, whom the Italian
Tiohmteers were besieging in the fortresses of the
** Quadrilateral/' ^ was the only rock of authority that
still defied the flood*
Under these circumstances Ferdinand despaired of
the Monarchy and abdicated.* The task of recovering
for the dynasty its ancestral inheritance viras undertaken
by his nephew Frands Joseph as a ^^ forlorn hope/'
Yet his venture met with such success that he has enjoyed
a reign of almost unparalleled duration* Radetzky had
already broken the Italian onset at the battle of Custozza,
and the government had re-entered Vienna by force : the
gage was now thrown down to the Magyars* During the
winter months of 1849 the struggle in Hungary was
bloody and indecisive ; but in March Radetzky's crush-
ing victory over the Piedmontese at Novara enabled the
Monarchy to concentrate all its forces on the Hungarian
front, in May the Tsar Nicholas decided to succour his
fellow-autocrat, and before the end of the summer the
Hungarian army capitulated to the Austro-Russian com-
manders at Viligos* Every foot of territory within the
Austrian frontier was thus once more under the govern-
ment's control, and towards the end of 1850 the
Monarchy reasserted its hegemony over Germany by
extorting a public apology ' from Prussia for the coun-
tenance she had lent to the German national move-
ment while Atistria had her hands full on the South
and East*
Austria thus succeeded in stifling the first birth-
spatsms of the new Europe : it is a still more remarkable
achievement that she survived their inevitable renewal
* Maotua, Peschiera, Verona and Legnano.
* Dccrmbrr X848* * The Convention'of OlmQtz.
too THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
and consummation. Napoleon IIL dealt her a hard
blow in 1859, which led direcdy to the establishment
of the Italian national state* In z866 the new Italy and
Prussia, drawn together by coincidence of resentment
and ambition, attacked Austria simultaneously from two
flanks, and ousted her completely from the Italian and
German spheres* Yet the main body of the Bmpire did
not dissolve under these strokes : external humiliation
merely opened a new epoch of internal evolution*
The Hapsburg Monarchy, then, has resisted the
shock of three titanic phenomena : Democracy, the
Risorgimento and Bismarck* The earthquake carried
away Lombardy, Venetia and the hegemony of Germany
— ^two pinnacles and an ornamental facade — but the
building itself stood firm* So, we might infer, the
present catastrophe may detach Galida, and possibly
Bosnia as well, but still the Monarchy will not collapse :
if it outlived the nineteenth century, it need have no
fear of the twentieth*
Nevertheless, the prophets of death have reason,
though not precedent, on their side*
The Hapsbui^ state, like the Prussian, has grown out
of one of Germany's Eastern "" marks*'' It is entirely
the creation of the Hapsbtirg Dynasty, which estab-
lished its hold on the duchies of Austria and Styria in
1282, when Rudolf of Hapsburg was Holy Roman
Emperor* Round this nucleus successive generations
of Hapsbui^ have gathered the present collection of
provinces by conquest, inheritance, feudal escheat,
marriage-settlement, free gift, legal chicanery, and all
the other methods which contribute to the growth of
private estates* Austrian history has therefore been
dominated likewise by the personal factor, but here the
anal(^ with Prussia ends : both developments are
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA loi
espressions of family character, but their comparison
iUustrates the marksd divergence of Hapsbtu^ and
HcAenzollem temperament*
The Prussian collector has been systematic and self-
controlled. Starting on the Eastern fringe of the
German world, we have seen how persistently he shifted
his land-marks towards the West, never grasping too
eagerly but never relaxing his grip, till his estates co-
incided with Northern Germany in extent, and his
administration was adopted for the government of the
German nation*
The Hapsburg has shown no such consistent policy*
He has pursued his hobby in happy-go-lucky fashion,
gaining here and losing there with good-humoured in-
difference* There are few territories in Europe that
have not passed through his hands. Before the great
prize of Austria became his, he Uved in a casde on the
hanks of the Aar,^ from which he derives his family name*
The warriors of the Five Cantons ejected him from his
ancestral dweUing when they founded Switzerland, and
at present not one rood remains to him of this land, nor
of Alsace and the Black Forest, his earliest acquisitions*
He has owned Spain and Belgium in the West, Venice,
Milan, Naples and Sicily have been ruled by him ; in
combat with the Turk he advanced far deeper into
Serbia during the eighteenth century than his armies
have penetrated during the present war, and the occupa-
txm of the Danubian principalities once carried him to
die Black Sea coast* All these bizarre properties have
been lost to him, but there is variety enough in the assets
that remain*
Prussia has made herself the exponent of German
natbnality : modem Austria is representative of no
* The chief Southern tributary of the Upper Rhine*
I02 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
nationality at all« It is true that two ^ small nations^ the
Magyars and the Tchechs, are wholly contained within
her frontiers ; but these constitute no more than 18*9
and 17*5 per cent* respectively of her total population**
The majority that remains is composed of fn^^ments
detached from six nationalities : Germans^ Italians and
Roumans ; Poles, Ruthenes and Southern Slavs* In aU
these six cases the main body of the race lies beyond the
Atistrian frontier, while in four of them it is organised
into a national state immediately conterminotis with it*
Germany, Italy, Roumania and Serbia are each waiting
to claim their Atistrian ** irredenta ** when the favoui^
able moment arrives*
The Hapsburg Monarchy has set Nationality at
defiance, and that is why the prophets shake their heads
over its destiny* What is the secret of its extraordinary
vitality, which has falsified all the prophets' calculations
and enabled it to survive both internal dissidence and
pressure from without $* An organism cannot thrive
with complete disregard to its environment* If the
Monarchy has not adapted itself to the national principle,
it must have responded to some other factor of equal
significance in the modem world*
We shall find this factor in Geography*
The political maps of mediaeval and contemporary
Europe produce quite different impressions* The
former is complex and variegated like a mosaic, or like
some rich window of stained glass, which has been
shattered by cannon and pieced together again hap-
> We might bring the number up to four, if we treated the Slovaks
as a nationality independent of the Tchechs, and distinguished the
Slovenes from the Southern Slavs.
* Total population of Austria-Hungary, 45,405,000; Magyars,
8,589,000 ; Tchechs-Slovaks, 7,946,000. The figures are taken mm
the census of xgoo.
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 103
hazard out of the fragments, without regard to the
or^jtnal design* The latter recalls the work of a skilled
nineteenth-century restorer, who has taken the patch-
work to bits, and patiendy regrouped the fragments till
the plan of their creator is once more apparent* If
Nationality is one characteristic of the modem state, the
second is geographical compactness and homogeneity*
The Hapsburg Monarchy has conformed itself with
striking success to this geographical law* At the setde-
ment of 1814 it abandoned its tide to Belgium and the
Black Forest in exchange for Italian territories im-
oiediately contiguous to its main mass, and the events
of x866, which expelled it from Italy and Germany
altogether, completed efifectually its geographical con-
solation*
The triumph of the Risoigimento and of Bismarck
seemed the Hapsburg Monarchy's disaster : in reality
it did the Monarchy good service by forcing it to accept
its natural destiny as the Danubian tmit in the European
scheme*
We have seen that the nucleus of the Dynasty's
dominions was the Mark of Austria* This province
was founded in 976 a*d* by Otto II*, the Holy Roman
Emperor, to be the bulwark of Bavaria and all Southern
Gennany against the Magyars, a horde of nomads from
the Eastern steppes,^ who had forced their way up the
Danube and raided Western Europe for a century as far
as the Mediterranean and even the Atlantic* Otto's
father, the Great Otto, had at last broken their power in
a series of crushing victories,' and the new mark was
* The Magyar language belongs to the Ugro-Pinnish group, but they
mst have amtfnflatfd an important Turk^ element, for the Byzantine
Bmpuor and htstorian Constantine Porhyrogennetos could write of
them in the tenth century as the ^ Turks **par exctUence^
• The battle of the Lechfeld in 955 was tte final stroke.
I04 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
intended to confine the chastened Magyars within iron
limits. It was therefore similar in design to the Mark
of Brandenbtirg^ which was founded during the same
period to protect Northern Germany against the
Slavonic tribes likewise advancing Westward on the
further flank of the Carpathians*
Austria^ however, outstripped Brandenburg in its
early development* Under die House of Babenbeif;,
which ruled it from its fotmdation until their own
extinction in 1246, it grew steadily in population and
extent : when the Hapsburgs took possession of it in
1282, it included not merely Upper and Lower Atistria
up to their present boundaries, but the Mark of Styria
as well, and was thus already one of the most important
units in the German world*
This prosperity was due to the province's command-
ing geographical situation. Vienna, which has been its
capital since the tniddle of the twelfth century, is die key
to the Danube basin, because it lies at one of the
principal breaks in the river's course.^ At this point
two great mountain^piants stretch out their arms towards
the Danube from opposite sides* On the South-West
the Alps press forward till dieir last spur, the Wiener
Wald, plunges into the stream immediately West of the
city: North-Eastward the Carpathians spread their
wings fanwise, and one of them, the ** Little Car-
pathian '' ridge, descends as far as the North bank of the
Danube immediately East of the March tributary and
jtist above the Htmgarian town of Pdszony (Pressbutg)*
Between these two lines of motmtains there intervenes
a strip of plain, the Marchfeld, in the angle formed
by the junction of the March with the Danube*
Across the Marchfeld, Alp and Carpathian beckon to
^ The ** Iran Gates " are the other*
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
one another, and the river whispers to all human way-
Carers from the South-East that they must sb'p throi^
this gap if they wish to reach his source, since to left and
right the mountains close their ranks and present an
impenetrable barrier. Vienna, however, has seized
control of this narrow gate. Ensconced between the
Wiener Wald and the Danube, it commands the March-
feld on the opposite bank. An army that traversed the
I^aiii &Dm tbe East and sot^t to ascend the rivei
further in Vienna's despite, would make the attempt
atitspeiiL
Vienna has proved its strategic worth against more
fonnidable enemies than the Magyar : in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries it shielded Germany^ and
Westem Europe from the Turk. The two sieges kud to
it by die invader, first in 1530 and then again in 1683,
were the most critical moments in the protracted assault
opcm Christendom, but the Turkish tide found here its
io6 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
high-water mark* After the crucial year of the second
siege, it ebbed steadily back, and Vienna ceased to be a
military outpost, as the border between Christendom and
Islam shifted further and further down the Danube again*
Thus ended the medieval phase of Vienna's history*
For seven hundred years die place was a fortress
severing the upper from the middle basin of the
Danube ; since then it has become an imperial dty, the
centre of a state formed by the union of both regions
within a common frontier* Superficially, this looks
like a complete reversal of character : in reality, Vienna
has risen to be the capital of a great modem monarchy
precisely because it has continued to be the point of
contact and division between two worlds*
The portion of the present Hapsburg Monarchy that
lies West of Vienna belongs to the indtistrial world
of Central Europe* The manufacturing district of
Reichenbe^ in the Northern comer of Bohemia is con-
tinuous with the Saxon Black Country immediately
across the frontier* In Silesia we have seen how
negligible the political boundaries are from the economic
point of view : Austrian and Prussian Silesia constitute
an indivisible economic unit, and this unit in tum is only
one section of a vast industrial belt, which htgjaas in
Poland, and extends Southward through Moravia and
Lower Austria as far as Styria beyond the Danube, on
the Alps' South-Eastem slope*
The portion of the Monarchy that lies East of Vienna
presents a striking economic contrast* The immense
plain of alluvium deposited by the Danube and die
Theiss, which opens out below Buda-Pest and is known
as the " Alfold,'' specialises in the production of wheat
and horses* The mountainous country between the
Drave and the Adriatic is devoted to stock-breeding*
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 107
Both these districts belong to the Soudi-Eastem gzoup,
which lemains in a much lower stage of economic
development than Central and Western Europe* Here
modem industry has not yet struck root, and economic
activity is still confined to the production of raw
materials for the industrial world^s factories and of
foodstufEs for its multiplied workers. The AlfSld is
homogeneotis in productive capacity with die Rou-
manian and Bulgarian plains in the lower basin of the
Danube beyond the ** Iron Gates '' : the live-stock trade
of the mountains reaches its acme in Serbia, which is
dependent entirely upon its export of swine.
The two sections of the Monarchy which meet at
Vknna are thus economically complementary* Co*
operation widi the Soudi-East assures to the North-
western worker that raw materials will not run short
and that the cost of living will remain low : oo-operation
with the North-West guarantees the South-Eastem
husbandman and shepherd a stable market for their
amuial surplus* Isolated, each section would be
txposcd to all die dislocations of shortage and over-
piodtiction ; combined, they constitute a self-sufficient
economic unit*
We can now understand how the Hapsbuq; state,
after centuries of territorial fluctuation, attained throt^
the aetdement of 1866 an equilibrium which has
endured for nearly fifty years* From the standpoint of
Natiooality, the Monarchy in 19x4 is as chaotic as it
was in 1793 or x6z8 : from the point of view of economic
geography, it has slowly but surely advanced from chaos
to order* The Mark of Austria has forfeited its national
significance as the bulwark of Germany, only to realise
its economic destiny as the focus of the Danube Basin*
The great river which Vienna commands runs from
io8 THEJVITALITY OF AUSTRIA
head to foot of the Empire like a spinal oord, and the
Hapsburg dominions have consolidated themselves
roimd this central conductor of economic life* Hquftmig
territories beyond the range of the Danubian "" nervous-
system " have inevitably fallen away and been absorbed
m other organisms, while territories within its compass
have been irresistibly drawn into the Hapsburg sphmt,
and vitalised into an organic whole*
The centripetal princ4>le we divined in the Hs^burg
Monarchy reveals itself, therefore, as economic* The
Monarchy has accommodated itself to the current set
going by the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth
century, and this augurs strongly for its survival* The
economic factor operated side by side with the national
in the moulding of nineteenth-century Eufope* The
territorial simplification, which we have noted in general
and traced more closely in the Hapsburg instance,
was determined principally by the economic cause*
Economics have been winning their way to primacy,
and we may prophesy that in the future ** international *'
phase of dvilisatum, they will play the dominant rftle*
The setdement of z866, then, brought the Hapsbuq;
Monarchy economic unity and equilibrium* A living
organism cannot, however, remain static : to survive,
it must grow* All states are in process either of growth
or of decline, and they are inevitably reduced to the
btter phase by failure to succeed in the former* Until
z866 Austria wasted her strength and jeopardised her
future by failing to recognize her Danubian character :
l^marck and the Risoi^^imento tai^t her, by a rude
lesson, that the true field for her expansion lay neither
towards Italy nor towards Germany, but in the same
direction as die Danube's current* Thenceforth Austria
set her face steadfasdy towards a South-Eastem horizon*
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 109
This '' trend Eastwards''^ has taken a very sintster
oomplezibn^ and has even occasioned the present war ;
yet its motive forot is not the dynastic ambition which
governed Austria's development as recently as the
Napoleonic period* It is only pardy acootmted for
by that national chauvinism of the '' Prussian " type^
wliidi during the last century has been supersedit^ the
rivalries of Autocracy and caricaturing them in its
escaggerated egotism* The essence of the movement
IS not militaristic but economic* It is the penetration
of an indtistrialised unit, in search of wider markets and
wider sources of raw produce, into r^ons still on the
far side of the Industrial Revolution*
The most striking expression of the Eastward Trend
is the position won by the Austrian Uoyd Steamship
Company in the traffic of the Levant* You can board
these steamers bound for Trieste at every great port in
tbe Nearer East* The express service firom Alexandria
has become the favourite route of British officials
returning from Egypt and the Soudan on leave, and the
Company has had die enterprise to run anodier service
90 hr afield as Bombay and Ce^n, in order to capture
the passenger-traffic from British India as well* Batoum,
the port of Russian Caucasia, is another terminus of the
Une, and it serves the whole of Asiatic Turkey for the
Gtfiiage of the European mail* In all the ^ean you
wiO not meet finer ships than these, and diey produce
die sense of some strong, civilised power behind the
faonn>n*
As soon as you have passed Corfii the impression
deepens* Slerious competition from the French
Messageries Maritimes or from the various Italian
lines ceases conspicuously at the mouth of die
1 ** Drang aach Oitai*''
no THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
Adriatic^ and the whole trade up the East coast of
this gulf is monopolised by the Lloyd*^
In Epinis and Albania the Lloyd stands for European
civilisation* It provides the only means of transport
for no practicable roads have yet been constructed on
land. Goods, mails and travellers depend upon it
entirely for bcal as well as for foreign traffic : in the
squalid coast-towns the arrival of the Austrian packet-
boat is the event of the week, and even the hosdle
Montenegrins cannot afibrd to boycott it from their
more imposing harbour of Antivari.
Montenegro is an improvement upon Albania* Here
for the first time the steamer can come direcdy alongside
a quay, instead of anchoring a mile out and transacting
her business by means of lighters plying dumsily to
and fro across the strip of shoal water inshore. When,
however, you leave Antivari behind, and turn to enter
Cattaro Fjord, you stumble suddenly into European
civilisation* As the reaches of the ** Bocche ** open out,
finely-metalled and graded roads, substantially buih
cottages and beautifully - terraced mountain slopes pie-
sent themselves on either hand, and a general air of
prosperity and good management pervades the scene.
TheresdFter you touch in succession at the Dalmatian
ports — Gravosa, Spabto, Sebenico— each busier than
the last, and you wonder curiously in what this series
will cuhninate, and what is the fountain-head of this
continually intensified economic activity, the first
symptoms of which you encountered in such distant
quarters. In Dalmatia, as in Krete and the Morea,
your imagination is fired by the majestic remains of
'The Ungstfo-Cioata line from Fiume is an arttfictal enterprne,
with the same political intention as the recent attempt to make Hungary
industrially independent of Austria by the development of Hungarian
maaufactum.
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA iii
Venetian fortresses with the Lion of St* Mark sculptured
upon their bastions, but you are aware that their signifi-
cance has vanished. Your goal is not mediaeval Venice,
and you are not disappointed when finally you make
If the Danube is the Hapsburg Monarchy's spinal
cord, Trieste is the sensory oi^^an through which it
communicates with the rest of the world. Atlantic
Imers are moored at its jetties, and it is in direct railway
communicatjon with every part of Central Europe.
Here you become fully conscious of the great industrial
hinterland in Styria and Lower Austria, Moravia and
Bohemia, which gives the Lloyd work to do in ports
thousands of miles away, and you remember the grain
and cattle of Hungary which feed the Austrian manu-
fixtures like fueL Standing in Trieste, you at last
behold the modem Hapsburg Empire in its true
perspective*
You understand, too, how this racially heterogeneous
state not merely holds together, but achieves a con-
structive and even aggressive foreign policy* Economic
exploitation of semi-dvilised areas demands a backing
of political prestige* The Austrian Lloyd could not win
and hold its ground without the constant aid of the
Austro-Hungarian consul, and the ultimate guarantee
erf the "" dreadnoughts ** docked at Pola* The business
of modem commerce can only be conducted with the
capital^ both material and mo»l, of a great power, and
no single element in the Monarchy is strong enough to
play this part alone* The populations of the Hapsburg
Empire depend upon union for the maintenance of their
present position in the world*^
*A reocflllHniilt Atatriaii^dfeadnoiight was chnstened "Viribus
Units **— « tragically ratiooal piece of utopiaiitsin*
112 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
The economic solidarity of the Bmpife was striking
illustrated during the crisis of 1908* The Min^try for
Foreign AfEairs had seised the opportunity of the Turidsh
Revolution to proclaim the formal annexation of die
'' Occupied provinces/' Bosnia - Herzegovina. The
inhabitants of the district are Southern Slavs, and the
act was a much heavier blow to Serbian nationalmn,
which still aspired to incorporate the territory in the
Serbian state, than to Ottoman Imperialism, which had
long resigned itself to a merely nominal suzerainty*
The armounoement accordingly aroused the deepest
resentment throughout the Slavonic world, and not
least among the Slavonic citizens of the Empire itself.
The Slavs, however, could make no reprisals* Russia
was paralysed by disaster in the Far East and revoludbn
at home, pro-Serbian demonstrations within the Haps*
buig K^narchy itself were vigorously suppressed by the
government, and Serbia was impotent without external
support* Turkey, on the other hand, was able to re-
taliate most effectively by boycotting Austrian shipping
along her whole immense coast-line, and eschewing the
use of Austrian manufactures. In particular the Turks
abandoned the ** fez,'' for they had come to depend
for the supply of their national headgear almost entirely
upon Austrian industry*
This Austrian manufacture of fezes hxppantd to have
become localised in Bohemia,^ and so the Turkish retort
hit the German and Magyar elements in the Monardiy,
who were really responsible for the government's actioa,
far less severely than the Tchechs, its bitterest opponents.
Austrian ** Official Circles " might therefore have been
^ Rekhenberg, the chief industml centre of the province, lies in a
German-speaking district ; but the whole of Behead^ Tcfaecfa and
German portions alikCy has become thofouf^ily ««i#t««f>*ffiff^ dtuine
the last century*
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 113
txpected to ooi^ratulate themselves on Hllmg mo birds
widi one stone. Yet the eoooomic interactioti of eadi
port of die Monarchy with every other is so dose, and
Rohtmian industry is such an indispensable element in
this delicate rhythm, that the effects of the local blow
made themselves imiversally felt. Instead of rubbing
its hands, the Ministry for Foreign AfEuis was broi^t
tt> its knees, and strenuously exerted itself on the
Tcfaecfas' behalf. The Turkish Government was able to
extort mose than adequate material reparation for the
Monarchy's moral delinquency b^re it gave the signal
for the boycott to cease.
The breach with Turkey in 1908 was an interlude.
Since the Balkan crisis which culminated in the Russo-
Tuitiih war of 1878, the Hapsbui^ and OtK>man
Empires have normally maintained a good undeistand"
ing, and the birth of this friendship was fbUowed
immediately by the alliance with Germany in 1879.
Tliis trqtle association, which has endured ever since,
and has embaAed in common upon the present war, is
likewise aplaincd by the economic situation. If Pan-
gcnnan pc^tidans dream of eventually consolidating
a gone of territory " from Hamburg on the North Sea
to Koweit on the Persian Gulf " into a sii^^e pohdcal
tmit, this is simply a hypothetical expansion of the
giDupii^ which already exists in miniature in the Haps-
butg Monarchy itself. The Hapsbui^ state is built up
oat of the inckistrial districts West of Vienna and the
agrarian districts East of it : the " Pangerman Con-
federation " would include the whole of industrialised
Central Europe on the one hand, and a proportional
agrarian element in South-Eastem Europe and Nearer
Asia on the other.
There is oonsiderable economic iustification for this
1X4 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
programme.^ Gec^^phy has imposed the ** Tiend
Eastward '^ upon the youi^r industry of Central
Europe as inevitably as she summoned the older
industry of the West to the Atlantic, and to the colonial
areas which lay along its highways* Yet Pangiermaniam
has set itself a difficult and perhaps a disastrous goal, in
determining to convert this economic possibility into a
political fact* It has begun by challenging the rest of
Europe to a mortal duel upon this issue* We have good
hope that the battle will end in the discomfiture of the
aggressor and the frustration of his plans, but even if
he were victorious in the war, he would find himself
hardly nearer to his objective* He hopes to fashion a
vast political structure upon his economic framework :
he has first to learn whether this basis suffices for the
execution of a less ambitious piece of craftsmanship*
Will the centripetal force of economics finally over-
come the centrifugal force of Nationality in the present
Hapsbui^ Empire i The programme of Pangermanism
stands or falls by the answer to this question, and it is
also a repetition, in more precise terms, of the question
we asked ourselves at the close of the last chapter :
Will the Hapsburg Empire break up as the result of this
war i Our attention is recalled to the internal struc-
ture of the Hapsburg state, this time in its political
aspect*
The countries which have coalesced into the present
Hapsbui^ Empire are some degrees removed from the
original centres of modem European dvilisatton, and
* The Germano-Austio-Turkish league has proved itself firmer than
the official ** Tr^le AUiuioe,'' of which Italy, not Turloey, ts the tfatrd
member* Italy joined the Central Buropcan powers in xSSa on
account of a temporary economic clash with Franoer but her funda-
mental interests, as we shall see later, are entirely dififiucnt from theirs.
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 115
medixval oondidons here continued almost unmodified
until the middle of the eighteenth century.
The new leaven began to work rather suddenly in
Maria Theresa's reign. She weathered the European
storm which burst out upon her accession by arousing
the national patriotism of the Magyars/ but the Empire
had been in danger of complete dissolution, and the
attempt to recover Silesia from the Prussians by alliance
with France did not meet with success.' Maria Theresa
was led by these misfortunes abroad to develop the
Empire's latent strength by reo^anisation at home.
She initiated her dominions into the ** Strong Govern-
ment '' phase, by a policy of centralisation on the model
of contemporary Prussia and France.
Political evolution in the ** Danubian tmit ** thus
itself at the outset from the process in the
West* There "" Strong Government '' and Nationality
prevailed in succession, and the latter was enriched with
the former's inheritance : here the two forces appeared
simultaneously upon the scene, and it was not long before
they came into violent collision.
Li 1780 Maria Theresa was succeeded by her son
Joseph II. Joseph was a devoted disciple of the French
philosophers, and he attempted to carry out uncom-
promisingly in backward Austria that transformation
of society which was accomplished a few years later in
such partial measure in progressive France. The actual
achievements of the French Revolution were none the
less stupendous, however short they fell of their aim,
and they were only made possible by the spiritual
response of the Nation to the philosophers' gospel.
Joseph undertook the mission of the ** philosopher-
> ** War of the Austrian Successoii/' 1740-1748.
• •* Seven Years' War,** 1756-17^.
r
ii6 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
king," and attempted by means oi " Strot^ Govern-
ment" to wrench unenlightened populations out of
their (dieiished traditions and convert them fordbly by
the accomplished fact. Neglecting all local differences
of language^ religion, and custom, he proceeded to re-
fashion his dominions on a pedantically uniform plan.
Joseph's crusade was a disastrous failure. Reform
was checkmated by revolt, and he was killed by ten years
of unrelieved disappointments. Yet his short reign has
determined the course of the Monarchy's internal history
ever since.
He contrived to rai^e NationaUty and Enlighten-
ment in opposite camps. His dt^matic disr^ard for
national feeling awakened it into frantic life, and it
arrayed itself for the battle not in the " Rights of Man "
(of viutii it had never heard), but in the familiar
harness of mediant vested interests. The centres of
nationalistic resistance were the provincial " estates,"
bodies representative not of peoples but of castes.
Hiey were dominated by the nobility and the Church,
so that nationalism in the Hapsburg Empire started with
a strong feudal and clerical bias,' whidi has left pei^
manent effects. The movement has remained legalistic
instead of becoming philosophic. It looks to the past
rather than to the future, and has fallen a willing victim
to the malady of " historical sentiment."
Joseph's death in 1790 concluded the first bout
in the contest between enl^tened despotism and
nationalistic reaction, but the factors of success and
' Thii n true of dw difbmit movemeoti in nnou* degrees. Magyar
iutioaaIi>m. for instance, hu been wholly ariitocntic sad oot dencal ;
among the Slovenes, wheie the nobility was German, dcricalkB has
till recently been supreme : national feeling among the Tdiecfas ms
fostered, in its earlier phase, by the Church and (be oiiginaUy Gtmaa
--•--■''- f in conjunction I
I
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 117
failure were too evenly divided between the two forces
to allow a speedy decision* The struggle continued
intermittently till the revolutionary year of 1848 brought
it tD a head*
We have already seen how Hapsbturg autocracy was
overthrown in one year only to rise again in the next^
how the national principle was championed by the
Magyars, who were willing to take up arms on its behalf,
and how their heroic resistance to Francis Joseph's
armies was overcome by the intervention of Nicholas,
Us accomplice*
From 1849 to z86x Joseph's theories seemed to have
triumphed, but in the Uttemess of the conflict despotism
had discarrifd its enlightenment* A uniform regime
of absolutism was imposed upon the whole Monarchy,
and the official use of German, the language of the
Viennese bureaucracy, was umVersally enforced, with-
out regard to the nationality of the governed* Such a
system could not last, because its spirit was entirely
negative* It was created to repress the evolution of
mneteentli-oenttiry Europe, and was bound to succumb
under the wave's return*
The external btows which forced the Monarchy to
rcs^ its Western ambitions and set it free to pursue
die economic career of a Danubian tmit, had an equally
momentous effisct upon its internal politics*
The war of 1859 induced the govenunent to temper
centralisation by the grant of a constitution* The
provincial estates or ** diets " were called into existence
again, thotsgh their traditional institutions were now
standardned to an official pattern, and each diet was
empowered to elect representatives to a two-chambered
parKammt for the vAiole Monarchy; but the utter
iUtde of 1866 foUowed hard upon this concession.
ii8 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
and the government found itself at its subjects'
mercy*
At this crisis the initiative was seized by the Magyar
nation. The relative weight of their numbers in the
motley population of the Monarchy, the corporate
feeling inspired in this mass by the tragedy of 1849, an
inherited political tradition and able leadership in the
present all combined to give them the mastery of the
situation. They were able to dictate their own terms,
and the ** Ausgleich ** or ** G>mpromise '* which they
imposed upon the Dynasty has remained the basis of
the Monarchy's internal organisation ever since.
The principal terms of the compact were as follows :
(i.) Hungary recovered her separate existence as a
state, with the territorial extent traditionally claimed by
the ** Crown of St. Stephen/' and with Magyar as its
official language.
(iiJ) This state was o^anised as a constitutional
monarchy, and the sovereignty was declared hereditary
in the House of Hapsbu^. Francis Joseph and his
heirs were to reign with the tide of king after coronation
at Pest.
(iii.) The new Hungarian Kingdom was made
autonomous in every department of political activity,
with three exceptions :
(a) Foreign Affairs, including the Q>nsular Service.
(b) Naval and military o^anisation.
(c) The budget required for these purposes.
(iv.) The control of these three departments was
vested in an orgaai of authority common to Hui^ary
and the rest of the Monarchy, and the character of the
common institutions was jealously defined :
(a) Hungary's allegiance to diem was oonditionai
upon the establishment and maintenance of a unified
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 119
system of parliamentary govermnent throughout the
rematmng Hapsbu^ dominions*
(A) This parliament, and not merely the Dynasty, was
to ratify the G>mpromise*
(c) The Hungarian and Austrian parliaments were
each to elect annually a committee or '" Delegation/'
and the two delegations were to share the control of
the Jomt Executive.
(iQ The Joint Executive was to consist of three
ministries : for Foreign AfiEairs, for War, and for Finance
respectively*
The Magyars' ultimatum was accepted uncondition-
ally. In 1867 a constituent assembly was convened to
represent the remainder of the Hapsbui^; dominions,
the Au^eich was formally voted as the fundamental
constitutijon of the whole Monarchy, and all relations
between the new Hungary and the diminished Austria
which were not covered by its terms, were settled more
or less satisfactorily by direct negotiations*^
The ''Dual System'' created by these actsj^has
remained in existence forty-seven years without being
denounced by either party, and we can draw important
ooodusions both from its structure and from its per-
The Ausgleich was a compromise between tmity and
* The foUowtng wetc the chief outstaiidiiig questioas :
(a) There was die public debt which had been contracted by the
oentralised autocratic government. The Magyars repudiated responsi-
bOfty for it, but guaranteed an annual contribution which amounted
10 somewhat less than a quarter of the total interest The rest of the
bofdcn devolved upon Austria*
(b) A cnstoms Union was formed between Austria and Hungary.
All revenues derived from it were assigned to the Joint Budget, and the
proportion was fixed in whidi the two states should oontrmute the
deficit id the Customs-receq)ts on the joint expenditure. Both the
Costoms Union and the current quota were made terminable after
periods d ten years, but the Customs agreement has been renewed in
one form or anodier ever since, and the readjustment of the quota has
always been satisfactorily effected*
lao THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
independence* During the war of 1849 the Magyars
had deposed the House of Hapsburg^ denounced all
connection with the other parts of the Monarchy and
proclaimed Hungary a republic. This declaration of
the national will had been nullified by brute fiorce^ for
seventeen years the national freedom had been paralysed
by a tyrannical regime, and now at last in 1866 the bonds
were broken in sunder* After passing through such
an experience as this, the Ms^ars might have been
expected to assert their independence more vehemently
than ever before. Yet in this supreme moment the
nation was guided not by the violent *' Kossuthists/' ^
but by the moderates under Deik : it chose constitu-
tional monarchy within the Hapsbui^ complex instead
of republican independence outside it.
The Magyars are strongly influenced by sentiment,
and this choice involved the most severe sentimental
sacrifices. Their constancy in abiding by it therefore
proves that since 1848 they have become conscious of
a higher necessity which impels them to maintain the
Hapsbu^ unit unbroken.
The Austrians, on their part, made perhaps even a
greater sacrifice in accepting the Magyars' terms*
Sentiment they could not have saved, for it was bound
up with the maintenance of the ** Germanising ** regime,
and since the dibdcle that was of course beyond their
power ; but it might appear that they would have con-
sulted their material interests better by resorting to the
other extreme, and breaking ofiFfrom Hungary altogether.
The compromise imposed upon them a disproportionate
share of the common burdens : they must accordingly
have found that co-operation with Hungary brought
' Louis Kossuth was the Mapyar exponent of the ideab of '48^ and
he was president of the Hungarian republic in 1849.
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 121
tfaem more than adequate material compensation in other
directions*
The explanation lies in the economic structure of the
Danubian unit which we have already analysed* The
Ausgkich is simply the political expression of the
economic situation* The Austrian half of the Dual
BAonarchy corresponds to the industrial region above
Vienna/ the Hungarian half to the agrarian region below
it. Their economic interdependence is recognised in
die common tariff: Hungary abandons the possibility
of building up an indigenous industry of her own, by
protection against Austrian manufactures, in order to
secure a virtual monopoly of the Austrian market for
foodstufib and raw produce* The value of political
massiveness in the competition of international com-
meroe is recognised m the three Joint Ministries:
Austria helps Hungary to pay her way, because these
common organs enable her to draw on Hungary's
strength as well as her own for the dipbmatic and
military support of her commercial expansion*
The political powers, then, which control respectively
the Austrian and the Hungarian half of the Monarchy,
have reckoned with the economic factor, and have bodi
concluded that it is the determining force in their
polidcal destinies* They see that neither of them is
economically strong enough to stand alone, and that
the akemative to ** Dualism ** is not independence, but
die incorporation of each in another group or unit*
Yet why shoukl such a change of grouping be
caimrially less desirable for them than the present
arrangement i It need involve no economic loss : we
* The pioviiioe of Dahnatia beloags to Aistria, thouj^ it Iks fiv
down the Adtiatic, 00 the other side of the ^ Crown of St* Stephen's ''
nxip of coast-line ; but it is an insignificant exception, due to chance
ijglifi thm design*
133 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRU
can imagine cxmditions under which it would actually
be advantageous. Suppose the Central Powers won
this war and realised the Pangennan's dieam by building
their poKtico-economic confederation from Hamburg
to the Persian Gulf, this colossal complex would
naturally articulate itself into two groups. The German
Empire and Austria would coalesce to form the industrial
half : the agrarian half would constitute itself out of
Htmgary, the Balkans, and the Ottoman Empire.
It might seem that Austria and Hungary would both
gain by such re-organisation. We have allowed that
the Germans of Austria would be d^^raded to a second-
ary rdle in the German Empire ; but meanwhile we
have discovered that they cannot stand alone. For
them it is merely a choice of yoke-fellows, and their
mightier kinsmen of Northern Germany would be
more sympathetic companions than the Magyars with
their aUen speech and inferior culture. Moreover, as
members of a consolidated German block they would
obtain mtich better terms in a new Au^eich with the
agrarian wing than they enjoy in their present Ausgldch
with the " Crown of St. Stephen."
The Magyars, on their side, would gain consider-
ably in political importance. In the Dual Kbnarchy
Hungary is no more than an equal, if not actually an
inferior partner : in a new South-Eastem group, her
comparative population, wealth and culture would give
her undisputed leadership.
The loyalty with wfaidi bodi parties have chmg to the
Ausgldch must therefore depend upon some further
factor in addition to the economic.
We have seen that the Ausgleich takes fiiU account of
the economic facts. It is a compromise between unity
nd independence dictated by economic necessity.
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 133
but it has another and a less creditable side* It is
abo a compromise between compulsory uniformity and
national devolution* It does not attempt to do justice
tQ the £acts of nationality in the Hapsburg Monarchy :
it merely concedes a modictmi calculated to shelve die
discussion of national problems that are in urgent need
ofsohstion.
The Magyars drew the boundary of the ** Kingdom
of St* Stephen/' and they daim to speak in the name of
its people* Yet at the census of 1900 only 44*6 per
cent* of the kingdom's total population was Magyar in
nationality^ while even in Hungary proper the Magyars
only amounted to 52*38 per cent*, a bare majority.^
The terms of the Ausgleidi between the new
Hungary and the rest of the Monarchy were thus
formulated on the one part by no more than a fraction
of the Hui^arians, and the parliament which accepted
those terms on the other part was even less representative
of the ** diminished Austria*'' * Nominally the Ausgleich
was an arrangement between the whole people of one
half of the Monarchy and the whole people of the
^ Pofpahdsm at the Census of xgoo :
Grown of St* Stephen • • • i9$!3i$%fioo
Huogtty proper .... z6328/xx>
Magyais 8^589/>oo
' The Tcfaechs leftised to send representatives to this constituent
asseflabiy, and so tbt Aus^eidi was passed without their voice, while
an the noo-Gennan deputies who did attend were in opposition except
the Pcks, The hrttcr were won over fay thesovemment at the price of
■■p«****«* concessions to their nationality, since the Germans formed
hanUy more than a third of the Austrian population, their supremacy
ooald only be maintained by a coalition, if the test semblance m
oooatitutioiial government was to be preserved. They chose to make
tenm witfi the Polish block radier than any other from motives of
fordgB poliey which we have already examined. The internal parlia-
lueuiaiy situation explains why the concessions to tiie Poles were so
Ut^^taiSbiag, and also why^ they have never become a precedent for a
feaend acfaeme of devolution. ^ This piece of Austrian liberalism was
paDsatovy, not romcructive, in intention*
ta4 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
remainder: actually it was concluded between the
M^Cyan of Hui^ary, a strong miaocity, and liie
Germans of Austria, who constituted do more dian
J5.I J per cent, of the extra - Hungarian or " Austrian "
population in 1900.^
bi this light the " Dual System " acquires a sinister
connotation. It could fairly be representtd as a
conspiracy between the two strongest narionalities in
the Hapsinurg Empire for the concerted oppression of
the rest. From 1849 to z866 the entire population of
the Empire was subjected to compulsory Gtermanisation,
but the buffets the German master received &om his
enemies in 1866 so weakened him that he was driven
to take one of his serfe into partnership. He strudt a
bargain with the Magyar, the sbve with the most
powerful fists. He raised him to be his peer, made
over to him a large share of his land and chattels to deal
with as he pleased, and obtained for himself in letum
immunity to exploit the remainder (^ his ill-gotten
possessions jast as unscrupukntsly as ever. Hie
Au^jleich roisters no real advance in political ideab.
After its institution, no less than before, the population
of the Monarchy has been divisible into two categories,
oppressors and oppressed. The grouping has been
modified, the system has endured.
This secondary compromise between uniformity and
devolution makes not for stability but for disruption.
The Germans and M^yars muster between them only
43.35 per cent, of the total population. They will not
succeed in expbitit^ die tnajority for ever. If they rely
upon economic solidarity K> cover their sins, they axe
leaning on a broken reed, for we are in presoice of a
factor infinitely stronger than the economic. Man is
' Populatjon of Austria, 36,icrjjooo. GttmanM, 9,173,0(10^
I
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 125
no more exclusively '' homo eoonomicus '' than he is
'' homo sapiens '' : his motives are determined neither
by free choice nor by mechanical reaction^ but by an
incalculable combination of both, yet as he advances in
civilisation his own will plays a more and more dominant
part* No amount of economic pressture will stifle a
growing nationality's revolt against injustice* The
break-up of the EKial Monarchy would dislocate the
economic life of oppressors and oppressed without
discrimination, but the latter will assert their freedom at
the cost of any sacrifice* Samson dragged down the pillar,
though he knew he must perish with the Philistines.
The ** Dual "' phase of the Hapsburg national problem
is therefore essentially transient, and since a return to
the centralisation of the 'fifties is out of the question,
the alternatives before the Monarchy are thorough
devolution to all nationalities ahke or a series of national
secessions which will be equivalent to a break-up.
We have now defined our original question within
narrow limits. To forecast the fate of the Empire
after the present war, we have to examine whether the
tendency towards devolution has been on the increase
or on the decrease during the forty-seven years since
the Dual System was established. A house that re-
mains divided against itself must fall in the end. Has
the rift grown so wide that the Hapsburg Monarchy
must succumb to the first tremor of earthquake, or is
it so nearly closed that the danger-point is passed,
and the building can defy even the most appalling
To discover this we must review the internal politics
of the Monarchy since 1867. There are two strands
of development to foUow, for tmder the Ausgleich the
'' Crown of St. Stephen '' has disengaged itself from the
136 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
rest of the Danubian Unit, and led a separate life of its
own. We will leave this junior Hungarian partner for
the moment^ and concentrate our attention upon the
" Austrian " * half of the complex, which has continued
in the direct line of the Hapsburg tradition.
The Ausgleich stipulated for the establishment of
parliamentary government in the Austrian as well as
the Hungarian state. The cotmtry thus re-awakened
tt) poUtical life found itself divided into two camps.
On the one side stood the Paiticularists who had
beaten Joseph e^hty years before. They championed
the traditional rights of the provinces, and preferred the
most conservative measure of local Home Rule to the
most hberally-conceived centralist constitution. Demo-
cracy was indifferent to them, for their mainstays were
still the nobility and the Church, and their influence was
confined to the backward provinces.
They were not primarily nationalists. One of their
strongholds was the Tyrol, a purely German district *
more devoted to the Dynasty than any other part of the
Empire. It was Particularist because the unsophisti'-
cated peasants had not emaodpated themselves from
clerical leadership, and because the piovince itself is
motintainous and isolated. Another Particularist strong-
■ Since 1667 the official style of the Hapaburg state hat been the
" Atstriaiv-Huiwariaa Monafcby," yet the non-Hungariao half i> not
tcdmicalljr cattOcd AuKria. Toe only oAdal " AuMriai " arc the two
Danubian arch-duchics, the old German mark, and the concct title of
Ac non-Hungarian partner as a whole seems to be the " Miigdomi and
lands repmenied in Ac Rcichantb at Vienna." A ooonnient, though
quite unofficial formula is " Cts-Lciduaia " and " Trana-Lcilhania."
The Lcitha is a Southern tributary of the Danube, which forms the
boundary between the two sections of the Dual Monarchy for a few
■ Noi counting the Italian-Speaking Trentino qipcnded to it on the
South.
1
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA ivj
hold was Bohemia* Here the majority of the population
was Tchech^ yet the programme of the local diet was not
conceived on racial lines* They did not agitate for the
recognition of the Tchech nationality within Bohemia
so much as for the segregation of the whole province,
Tchech and German elements alike, from the undis-
tinguished mass of the Dynasty's dominions* They
demanded the restoration of the historical Kii^dom
of Bohemia* ** The coronation of Francis Joseph at
Prag ** was their party cry, not ** The acceptance of the
Tchech language as a medium of secondary education
and official intercourse*'*
If the various Sbvonic groups in Austria tended, on
the ^ole,^ to range themselves on the Particularist
side, it was because the general level of education and
enlightenment among them was at that time lower
than in the German section of the population* Bohemia
was then only in the first stages of the Industrial Revo-
lution, and her peasantry was as fast in the Church's
grip as the Slovenes remained till a few years ago* They
were not acutely anti-German in feeling : nationalism
cannot flourish without the support of a national
culture*
On the other side stood the Liberal Party, who were
really Joseph's disciples* They had much in common
with die party of the same name which had won
its way to power in Great Britain by the Reform Bill
of 183a, a generation earlier* They held the same
xadier narrow but intensely important doctrines, and
acted with the same honesty up to their principles*
Like the ** Manchester School," they were zealous for
material progress* They were determined to bring
into line with Western Europe, and transform
We have already explained why the Poles were an exception*
128 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
her into a dosely-knitt efficiently organised^ i
state.^
The Liberals found their chief support in the German
element^ especially in the provinces of Lower Austria
and Styria* The reactionary sympathies of the
Tyrolese were as exceptional among the Germans of
Austria as they were normal among the Sbvs^ and the
German nationality contributed an overwhelming
proportion of the commercial and professional classes^
by whom the new Austria was to be built up*
The Liberal Party accordingly envisaged its policy
from a German point of view. They oontempbted
the Germanisation of the Austrian state^ not so much
through national chauvinism as because uniformity
was part of their theoretical programme and was only
conceivable on a German basis*
The Liberals of 1867 met with far more success than
their imperial forerunner* The leaven had worked its
way deeper since his time* The philosopher-autocrat
had wrestled alone against all his subjects : now his
ideas were being put into action by the best-educated
and best -organised section of the poptdation itself*
Moreover, they were setting themselves a more modest
task* Joseph had grappled with the whole Hapsburg
Empire : the Liberals were loyal and convinced sup-
porters of Dualism* By letting the '' Crown of St*
Stephen "" go its own way, they had relieved themselves
of the more backward and stifif-necked half of the
Danubian Unit, and saved all their eneq;ies for dealing
with the rest*
In the parliamentary strug^e with the Particularists,
^ The application of their political creed to economics led diem to
the fame condusions as their English prcdecesKis* They were
convinced Free-traders.
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 139
the liberals won an easy victory. The Aui^ich
itself gave them a preliminary advantage by stipttlating
for unified parliamentary government* A common
Gonstittient assembly had to be summoned, as we have
seen, to ratify the Compromise on Austria's part, and
this body proceeded in the same session ^ to frame a
parliamentary constitution on centralist lines* On
this occasion, and on many others, the Particularise
Bohemian deputies played into their opponents' hands
by refusing to take their seats as a protest against the
rejection of their demands* With the assistance of the
Polish group, the German Liberals were still able to
muster a quortmi and carry on the government according
to the letter of the constitution* Bohemian abstention
merely relieved the government of an opposition*
The Liberal ministry rallied to itself all the forces of
enlightenment in the cotmtry by passing in 1868 a
series of laws which tmcompromisingly abolished the
dvil authority of the Catholic Church*' In 1871 the
Tchechs made their supreme effort for the restoration
of the Bohemian kingdom, and failed* In 1873
Centralism achieved its final tritunph by carrying a
law which took the election of parliamentary deputies
from the provincial diets and transferred it to the direct
vote of the constituencies*
The Liberals, however, had a short career* They had
shot all their bolts* Austria was freed from her most
gaJling mediaeval handicaps and initiated into her
industrial phase ; the party had no more to offer the
> Dcoembcr X867*
* JoBcph had already done this work, but the ecdcstastical otgaoaa-
tioo had been swept back into power by the re-action against the
Revoltttioii* The concordat of 1855 between Viennese /Q)8olutann
aad Fqnl Obscurantism had given the Church ahnost complete power
over maniage and education in the Hsqjsburg Monarchy.
I30 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
country, and its influence began to decline. A financial
crisis in 1873 tainted it with discredit, and six years later
it feU.
The era of Liberal reform was followed by a Itdl.
For fourteen years ^ Austria acquiesced in the neutral
ministry of Count Taaffe, who conciliated all parties
by a poUcy of parliamentary inactivity* The Industrial
Revolution, however, was producing its effect, and great
changes were taking place beneath the surface*
(a) The first symptom was a dramatic reversal in the
clerical position* llie workers of the German-speaking
industrial centres were beginning to achieve dass-
consdousness* They were profotmdly hostile to the
Liberal capitalism which had created and exploited
them, and were determined to gain a hearing for their
own point of view* The Clericals saw their opportunity*
Their old enemies and conquerors were being attacked
on the opposite flank : they did not remain passive
spectators, but circled round the Liberals' rear from
Right to Left, and joined forces with the new movement*
In 1882 the Catholic group had detached itself from
the Conservative mass : during the next decade it
began to be converted to Christian Socialism* The
ideas of Joseph had triumphed by appealing to the
middle class : the Church went one step further, and
sought to re-establish its hold over the people by
identifying itself with Industrial Democracy* In the
course of the 'eighties the ** New Toryism ** achieved
striking successes* Factory legislation was passed and
National Insurance introduced* The clerical current
was confirmed in its new trend*
(b) The general rise in economic prosperity had
likewise affected the Austrian Sbvs* Education had
» 1879-93,
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 131
spread, a cultured class had grown up,^ and therewith
the Language Question had made its appearance* So
kng as the Sbvonic tongue remained a peasant patois,
the use of German was tmchallenged ; but now Tchech
students in the secondary schools and universities
demanded instruction in their native medium, and
Tchech bwyers and officials cotdd claim with authority
that their language shotdd be placed on an equal footing
with German in the administration of Bohemia*
The Language Question was taken up by a new
party, the '' Yotmg Tchechs/' The historical kingdom
of Bohemia meant little to them, and they did not insist
strongly upon Home Rule, much less upon secession*
They vehemently disagreed with the *' Old Tchechs' '*
parliamentary policy of passive resistance : they intended
to extort the recognition of their national individuality
by taking a vigorous part in the sessions at Vienna*
Their ideal ran directly cotmter to the old Germanism
of the Liberals* They were impressed by the fact that
three-fifths* of the Austrian popubtion were Sbvs,
they believed that with the advance of democracy
numbers must prevail, and they conceived of Austria in
the future as a Sbvonic state* Instead of detaching
themselves from the Austrian unit, its Sbv citizens were
to conquer it for Sbvdom, and convert it into the chief
focus criF Slavonic culture in Europe*
^The native Tcfaedi and Slovene aristocracy had been either
Germanised or replaced by Germans in the later Middle Ages*
" At the Census of 1900 the population of Austria was composed as
felkms:
Slavs •
Latins
Others
Total * 06,107,000 zoo%
9,172,000
35.13%
15,5x4,000
59^%
958/)oo
a.07®^
463/xx>
^•7"/q
133 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
This ptogxanune was not Utopian* The Tchedis
and Poles had entered the pale of European civilisation
earlier than any other branch of the Slavonic race :
Pmgand Cracow had played a prominent part in history
before the foundation of Petersburg or Tobolsk* More-
over, the emergence of the new Christian Socialist party
among the Youi^ Tchechs^ German feUow-dtizens
offered hopes of racial reconciliation. Industrialism
and the Catholic Church both overrode the divisions of
nationality. The German Liberals had failed to remove
the national problem : tmity might still be attained by
transcendii^ it* The Promised Land, however, was
still far off, and the path was so beset by dangers that it
was doubtful whether Austria would reach her goal*
(c) Christian Socialism was not the only new move-
ment among the Austrian Germans. The old Liberals
had fallen because they failed to move with the times*
They had lost control over the Industrial Revolution, and
the dericab had snatched from them the initiative in
social politics; but they had also mismanaged the
assimilation of the Slavs, and the Youi^ Tchechs had
arisen in their despite* This Slavonic renaissance
evoked a German party of a purely nationalistic
diaracter*
Austrian ** Pangermantsm " had its root in the
'German districts of Bohemia, which were threatened
most immediately by the progress of the Tchechs in
numbers and education* The alliance widi the Ger-
man Empire in 1879 gave the movement great impetus*
In z88o an association called the ** German School
Union ** ^ was founded, to foster education in the Ger-
man language througlKmt Austria* Bismarck became
the part/s hero, and Prussian methods their ideal*
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 133
They wished to direct all the resources of government
to the Germanisatk>n of Slovenes and Tchechs.
This German chauvinism thwarted the lai^er interests
of the German nationality* The new ** German Left'' in
the Austrian Reichsrath was obsessed by the nationalis-
tic idea, and spumed all the factors that were making for
progress and unity* Had it triumphed, the bter con-
ception of a German confederation from Hamburg to
At Persian Gulf could never have taken shape, for the
Danubian Unit, the central link in the chain, woukl
have been shattered in pieces by German fanaticism*
The crisis came four years after Count Taaffe's
resignation* In 1891 the Young Tchechs had com-
pletely ousted the old Bohemian Particularists, and
thenceforward they were a power in the Reichsrath*
By 1897 they had become strong enough to impose
Adi will upon the government, and ordinances were
promulgated which established Tchech as an official
language side by side with German through all districts
of Bohemia*
The result was a complete breakdown of constitutional
government* The German nationalists made parlia-
mentary procedure impossible* Obstruction developed
into a physical struggle between the parties for the
possession of the House* The resignation of the
ministry and the repeal of the decrees eased the situa-
tion at Vienna, only to necessitate martial law in
Bohemia* Both sides were intractable, and since they
combined to prevent the conduct of any business in
pariiament, government had to be carried on for nearly
nine years independently of it, by aid of an emergency
clause in the Constitution* During this period national
hittemess steadily grew, to the exclusion of all other
political interests*
134 THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
Such oonditioiis could not last for ever. Austria was
rapidly losing all political moraU, and unless the non-
nationalistic forces in the country could rally themselves
sufficiently to make some great step forward, nothing
could prevent the state from sinking through a phase of
irresponsible government into utter disruption.
The situation was saved by a fresh appeal to demo-
cracy. In 1905 people began to discuss die introduction
of Manhood Suffrage) in place of the old franchise of
die Prussian type.
The proposid brought out the positive community of
interest between the Slavonic national groups and the
German socialists. Both had everything to gain by an
electoral system based not on privilege, either of class or
of race, but upon the numerical proportion between the
various sections of the popubtion, and there was no
rivalry between them, because their aims did not come
within the same plane of politics. The Slavs were still
occupied by the preliminary question of nationahty, the
German workers were devoted to social problems. The
satutfaction of the Slavonic nationalists could bring
German Labour nothing but gain. National aspirations
would pass out of the realm of poUrics as soon as they
were realised, and their Slavonic devotees would be
h'berated to recruit the non-nationalisric ranks of Social
Democracy and Christian Socialism.^
The projected Reform Bill produced a beneficent
effect even before it became law. Durii^ the months
when it was in debate, a &esh current of polidcal interest
swept through the mass of the population, and it did
not disappoint the country's expectations when it was
finally promit^ted towaicb the dose of 1906.
\
THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA 135
Besides distributing parliamentary seats between the
different races in far juster proportion than before^ the
new electoral law made an admirable attempt to mini-
ffl^ racial friction in the details of its mechanism/ but
its full significance was only seen in the first elections
held in accordance with it at the beginning of the
following year* For the first time the people of Austria
had been free to return a chamber of deputies really
representative of the country's national divisions^ yet
the actual result was a relative weakening of the various
national groups, and an enormous increase among the
advocates of social reconstruction* Out of a house of
5x6 members, the Social Democrats mustered 87 ' and
the Christian Socialists 67 ' : together they amotmted
to 30 per cent* of the whole*
Thus between 1897 ^^^ <907 the Austrian State
braved and weathered the tempest of nationalism*
During those years it achieved for itself a success we
hoped to see shared in due course by the whole of
Europe : it passed over, without suffering shipwreck,
from the nationalistic to the post-nationalist phase of
development*
As far as her own seamanship availed, Austria was
ottt of danger* The session of 1907 revealed the
influence of nationalism distincdy on the decline, and
sodal-eoonomic factors in the ascendant* The cotmtry
needed nothing but a free hand to work out its own
salvation* Austria, however, is more cruelly involved in
external trammels than any other state in Europe* She
is not affected merely by the international situation : her
fortunes are at the mercy of her yoke-fellow Hungary*
^SceCh*VL *Fonnerlyxi.
* Formerly a?. Tbey had by this time absorbed all the clericals
down 10 the last of the Conservative rear-guard*
136 THE VrrALITY OF AUSTRIA
If the unity of the Hapsbuq; oomplex is essential to
the maintenance of its members' position in the worlds
developments accomplished in one half of the Monaidiy
will be of little consequence unless they extend them-
selves ultimately to the other* Austria had transcended
nationalism in vain if the same sinister force were still
capable of precipitating catastrophe in Hungary ; yet
the Ausgleich rigidly debarred the Atistrian people from
any intervention in Hungarian aflTairs* There was only
one power in the Empire to which an appeal from the
Ausgleich could be made^ and that was the Hapsbutg
Dynasty*
The Ausgleich had never challenged the Dynasty's
supreme position* Francis Joseph had witnessed many
transformations of his Empire before z866, and he
remained the living symbol of a tradition older and
more endturing than the setdement of that year. It was
to the King-Emperor's credit that he accepted the Dual
System with whole-hearted loyalty, though the very
sinosrity with which he devoted himself to securing its
success rendered him, as he advanced in years, less and
less capable of seeing beyond it.
Francis Ferdinand, however, his nephew and his
heir, held a very different opinion about the Dynasty's
mission in the present* For him Dualism was no state
of perfection, but only a passing phase in the Monarchy's
bng history* He saw with a clear eye that the Magyar-
German compact was botmd up widi racial oppression,
and that so long as it remained in force, the Danubian
Unit went in danger of a devastating explosion of
nationalism* What he would have accomplished had
he ascended the throne, it is impossible to say* People
are always apt to magnify possibilities that have been
denied the chance of realisation, yet this much seems
THE VltALltV Of AUSTRIA 137^
oertam, that he contemplated the abolitioii of Dualism,
and die substitution of a ** Trialism *^ in its pbce* The
Slav was to be raised to an equality with the German
and the Magyar, and to receive h^ just share in the
political control of a state which depended upon him
so largely for its wealth and popubtion*
Had Francis Ferdinand lived to do his work, he might
have created an epoch in Hapsbturg history even more
important than that of the Ausgleich. The forward
movement which triumphed in Austria in 1906, might
have conquered the remainder of the Monarchy within
the next generation* Such hopes were cut short by his
assassination at Sarayevo in June 1914* That crime
was the tragedy of Austria* By pltmging her into a
European war, it cancelled in a moment all the con-
structive work of half a century and made the wound
of nationalism break out again, to bleed more violently,
perhaps, than it has ever done since z848*
We have seen that this mortal disaster was due to
no causes latent in Austria herself* To understand
its antecedents, we must examine contemporary events
in the other half of the Monarchy, the ** Crown of St*
Stephen*'^
xjS THE BALKANS
CHAPTER IV
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE BALKANS
In Vienna people like to say that '* the East begins at
the River Leitha ** : if we borrow the epigram with the
modification that the '' Balkans *^ begin there, we shall
bring Htmgarian history into its true perspective*
Vienna is not merely the dividing-point between two
economic worlds : it is also the point of transition
between opposite phenomena of racial distribution*
West of the Leitha, the nationalities of Europe are
mainly grouped in compact blocks, which correspond
with considerable accuracy to the physical and economic
articubtion of the continent*^ The national basis would
suggest itself naturally to the observer as a principle of
political o^anisation, and this quarter of the world was
in fact the cradle of the National State* South-East
of the Leitha, however, the nationalities are interlaced
in inextricable confusion over an area that extends to
the Bbck Sea and the iEgean, and the international
congress which will follow the war might well despair
in this region of coaxing sovereign national states out
of Geography, not to speak of reconciling their structure
with the necessities of modem economic life*
The problem must be faced nevertheless* The
popubtions of South-Eastern Europe are possessed by
the idea of nationality to a morbid degree* Intimate
contact has produced mutual exasperation instead of
understanding and good-fellowship, while the difficulty
of devising any compromise that would deal impartial
* For a visuai prcsentatum of this £sict see Map VIL
HUNGARY 139
justice to all has only made each faction determined to
push its own interests recklessly at the expense of its
rivals*
These nations contribute litde to European culture*
Hitherto they have been accustomed to take rather
than to give, and their spiritual evolution has not the
same intense interest foi us as that of Germany or of
Russia* Their importance to Europe lies in their
immense capacity for doing her injury*
If the destructive power these elements have accumu-
lated threatened nothing more precious than themselves
with destruction, their fate would be comparatively
tndififerent to us, and a reader who had followed with
patience our laborious diagnosis of German and Austrian
oomplaints, and our minute prescriptions for their cure,
might refuse attention to Magyar or Serbian pathology*
Yet the physician comes to heal the sick rather than the
oomparatively sound, and if the sickness is an infectious
plague, the interests of the whole community urgently
demand his intervention*
The Nearer Eastern Question has been with us now
for a century in continuously aggravated form* The
Congress of Berlin tried to bury it tmderground in 1878,
and succeeded in laying a mine where the slightest
eiq>losion threatened to blow up the European powder-
magazine* Till this mine is thoroughly damped, we
shall not have reached our supreme objective — the
abolition of European war*
The whole of the unrestful zone beyond Vienna thtis
£alls within our scope, and in the present chapter we
shall not confine ourselves to the Hungarian half of the
Dual Monarchy, but shall extend our discussion to
Hungary^s Balkan neighbours* The various national
problems of the region are indeed so closely intertwined
I40 THE BALKANS
dttt we oould not deal with any one ai them in isolaticHi.
Wc will therefore include Htmgaiy with the rest under
the common denomination of a " Balkan State," and
we will approach her first, because she holds the premier
place in the group both in geographical situation and
in d^iee of ^iritual and material development. We
shall find Aat she displays all the characteristics of the
Balkan type.
A. Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary coveis the major part of
the middle Danube-basin. From the junction of the
March tnbutary as far as the " Iron Gates " the river
flows through Hungarian territory. The Carpathian
Range, which circles from the former point to the second
in a vast sweep towards the North and East,^ constitutes
both the watershed of the Danube-system and the
frontier of the Hungarian state. Southwards alone
Ae kingdom is bounded first by the Drave descending
from the Eastern face of the Alps, and then by the
Danube itself, from the point where it unites widi the
Drave and adopts the latter stream's Easterly course.
The mountainous zone on the other side of this line,
which intervenes between the Danube-basin and the
Adriadc, has never been incorporated in Hungary
directly.
The heart of the Hungarian land is the AlfSld, an
alluvial plain deposited in the hollow of a vanished sea.
In shape it is roughly an isosceles triangle, with die
Southern river-boundary of the kingdom as its base,
and with its apex at the Vereczka Pass,* the midmost
point of the Carpathian arc. The Danube flows through
it from Buda-Pcsi to its junction with the Drave, and
■ See mu) on p. lo;.
■ Immedtatcty Bast of the l^ok Pis.
HUNGARY 141
it includes the strip of country between the Danube
and the Theiss, as well as a wide zone beyond the Left
or Eastern bank of the latter river*
This central plain was occupied by the Magyars in the
ninth century A«o* Bursting through the Carpathians
by the Vereczka Pass, they entered the AlfSld at its apex,
flooded it with their setdements, and pressed still further
up the Danube above Buda till they were checked, as we
have seen, by the Austrian and Styrian Marks*
Yet the Magyars never made the whole of Hui^^ary
their own* On either flank of the AlfSld there are
stretches of hill-cotmtry, included like itself within the
encircling wall of the Carpathians, but sundered from
it by lesser mountain barriers* In two comparatively
isolated regions the earlier possessors of the land
managed to maintain their existence under Magyar
dominion*
North-West of the AlfSld a series of long, winding
valleys descends from the Carpathians and opens upon
the Danube between Pressbttxg and Buda-Pest* They
have remained in the possession of the Slovaks, a
Slavonic population hardly distinguishable in dialect
bom the Tchechs of Moravia and Bohemia on the other
side of the River March*
East of the Alfdld lies the district called Transylvania*
Between the Vereczka Pass and the Iron Gates the main
diain of the Carpathians makes an extremely salient
angle towards the East, but a secondary brandi of the
range takes the shortest cotuse from the one point to the
odier, and skirts the Eastern side of the AlfSld in a
North'-and-South direction*^ A considerable extent of
* Id the tfatrteenth century this ridge was clothed in dense forest, and
the settlefs who penetrated it from the direction of the Alfdld therefore
gme the name of Transjrhrania to the country they reached on the other
side of it.
142 THE BALKANS
tangled hill and valley is caught within this split in the
mountain line, and is almost equally secluded by it
from the more open cotmtry on all three sides.
The passes which lead through the outer Carpathian
wall, North-Eastward into the Moldavian steppe and
Southward into the plain of WaUachia, carry as many
lines of railway as those which pierce the interior wall
and debouch upon the levels of the AlfSld. The
province is rich in rivers, but the water-system hardly
facilitates commtmication with the outer world. The
ootmdess streams have to concentrate their forces in
three main channels before they can succeed in breaking
through the motmtain barriers, and even then they
content themselves with precipitous gorges, barely
wide enot^ for the current itself* Two of these
channels,^ however, find their way to the Alf5ld and
only one' to the WaUachian plain, so that to that extent
Transylvania may be reckoned to have closer geo-
graphical links with Hungary than with Rotmiania.
When the Magyars appeared in the Alfdld, this
sheltered province was already occupied by the Rotunans,
a popubtion of Latin speech.*
The Kingdom of Hui^[ary was thus heterogeneous
in nationality from the beginning, and as her history
developed the confusion increased.
After the conversion of the Magyars in the eleventh
century aj)., German colonies were introduced to
civilise the country. They opened up the mineral
resources of the Slovak hills, and established themselves
^ The MaiQS and the Szamos. * The Alt (Alula).
'Prohably they are descended from the Tjfininfd inhabttaiita of
niyricum, die aectkm of the Roman Entire between the Alps, the
Dnve and the Adriatic. When Sbvonic munigrants from die North
descended upon the Adriatic coast tn the seventh century aj). (see
beksw), they would have been hkety to press the native piovindais
Eastward across the Danube.
HUNGARY 143
still more successfully in the no-man Viand of Transyl-
vania* The seven Saxon towns of this province were
diartered in the thirteenth century by the Hungdiisoi
Crown as practically autonomous communities.^
During the same period the Ruthenes,' the southerly
wing of the Russian race, overflowed the Carpathian
d^, and following upon the heels of the Magyars,
possessed themselves of the eictreme fringe of the Alf 6ld
from the Vereczka Pass as far as Ungvar.
These two new factors added to the complication, but
die present phase of the national problem in Hungary
has been principally conditioned by a much later event.
An essential element in the modem Balkan type is a
past experience of the Turk* The evolution of all the
Balkan States might be stated in terms of a devastating
Turidsh conquest, which destroyed the previous tradi-
tion of native culture, and a hardly less devastating war
of Liberation, waged with a depraved ferocity and an
exalted heroism* The heroism seems to inspire the
liberated populations with the spiritual energy to rebuild
dieir national life from the foundations, die ferocity
smirdies the fresh page in their history with a Turkish
stain, which it takes many generations to wash away.
Hungary suffered this characteristic Balkan calamity
in common with her South-Eastem neighbours. In
1536 the Magyar Kingdom perished on the terrible
fiekl of Mohacs, and for a century and a half' the AlfSld
was ruled by a Turkish pasha established in the fortress
of Buda. The Ttirk was expelled again, as we have
seen, after the crucial siege of Vienna in 1683. Half a
century of vigorous campaigns drove him back behind
' Hcnoe the German synoaym for Traaaylvania — ** SkbeobOigen."
■Abo known as ** Little Rusnans '* or ** Ukrainians.'' See Ctu
VIILC.
144 THE BALKANS
the line of the Save and the Iron Gatts, and the Peace
of Belgrade in 1739 delimited a frontier between the
Ottoman and Hapsbuxg Empires which resigned the
whole of Hungary to the latter.^ Yet the ejected Turk
had not failed to set his mark upon the bind, and the
victors found the AlfSld a desert*
In the middle of the eighteenth century the Hapsburg
Monarchy was entering the '* Strong Government "'
phase, and the newly-acquired territories offered a
magnificent field of experiment for the ideas of
'* Enlightened Autocracy/'
The country was ridi in natural resources: it lay
waste through want of population to develop them, and
the Government met the need by schemes of cobnisation
and town-building on an extensive scale* The re-con-
struction of Hungary was the most striking success of
Maria Theresa's and Joseph's policy* During their
reigns the material traces of the Turk's presence were
obliterated, and before the end of the century the
Kingdom once more approached the standard of
Central Europe, in acute contrast to the territories still
blighted by Turkish mis^vemment immediately beyond
her frontier* Yet in restoring Hungary's material pro-
sperity, her new rulers immeasurably aggravated the
impending problem of nationality*
Before the Turkish conquest die Alf5ld had been the
stronghold of the Magyar race, and the Magyars had
therefore suffered more severely than any other element
in the country by the devastation of the Turkish wars*
The remnant of the nation that survived on the plain,
and the fragment of it that lay West of Buda along the
^ ThB frontier remained unaltered mitil tbe occupation of Bosnia-
Hetxegcmna tn 1878* The only change in the interval was the anneBi-
tion to Austna of die Dafanatian coait-praivino^ lonneriy a VcnetiaQ
poBcasion, at the settlement of x8z4.
HUNGARY
145
Attstrian and Stynan bofder, might perhaps have made
good the losses by their own gradual increase under the
regime of peace and security that had descended upon
diem at last* The process^ however^ would have
been extremely sbw, and the autocracy was neither
psdent nor far-sighted, while it wotdd have ignored the
factor of nationality on principle^ even had it realised
its bearii^ on the situation*
The Government therefore re-peopled the Alfold
by the indiscriminate introduction of setders from all
the surrounding races* Roumans from Transylvania
were allowed to encroach upon the plain till they had
advanced half the distance between their mountains
and the Theiss* Serb refugees from Ottoman territory
were encouraged to setde on the Northern bank of the
Danube* Enclaves of German colonists from Swabia
were distributed all over the land to leaven the other
elements with Western civilisation* By the time the
work was finished Htmgary had been reduced to such a
racial medley that the Magyars no longer constituted
more than a bare majority of the population*^
' An analyn of the census taken in z ooo for the Kingdom of Hungary
(cKtaaive of Croatia-Slavonia) is the best oonunentary on the result :
ffotumaUtus
Roumans
Magyars
Cioati
Otheis
Non-l^Xagyar
nationalities
}
Total population
Numbers
2,785/000
IMlfiOO
ZfQOO/XX)
«5iO0O
439/)oo
zSg/xx)
446/)00
8,589*000
8*340^000
x6,^8»ooo
Percentages
X6.S4
zz*76
a.59
2.51
Z*Z2
2.66
5Z.OO
dQJOO
■f yaw**
Z00.00
Z46 THE BALKANS
Had historical continuity been broken as completely
in Hungary as in other Bsdkan lands, this confusion of
tongues might have proved harmless. Joseph^s political
genius might have steered the cotmtry into the wake
of the Swiss Confederation, and initiated it into the
European fraternity as a non-national state. The
Turkish rule in Hungary, however, had been short,
and it had never extended to the whole kingdom. The
Slovak country in the North, Pressburg on the Danube,
and a strip of territory between the Danube and the
Drave atong the Styrian boundary had all escaped
conquest by electing the Hapsburg as their king and
sheltering themselves beneath his strong arm. In die
opposite quarter Transylvania had been saved by a
vigorous line of princes, who secured the autonomy of
the province under the suzerainty of the Turkish Empire.
In a very considerable portion of the country the
mediaeval tradition thus maintained itself unbroken,
and when the unconquered North-Westem border, the
Turkish pashalik, and the Transylvanian principality
were united once more, the forces derived from the past
were strong enot^ to challenge the Hapsburgs' schemes
for the future.
We have seen that the Hungarian ** Estates '' took
the lead in the struggle between Centralisation and
Particularism which convulsed the whole Hapsburg
Monarchy from 1780 to 1849. They were able to do
so because mediaeval Htmgary had developed her
parliamentary institutions more strongly than any other
European country except our own.
The Hungarian nobility was abnormally numerous.
The majority of the class consisted simply of the free
proprietors in the Magyar-speaking districts, including
almost everybody who was not a serf. Many were
HUNGARY 147
natuially of quite bw standing, but there was also a
ocmtii^ent of great landed magnates, and these were
principally to be found on the non-Magyar territory*
They were descended from barons established there by
the kings 'to keep the subject races in hand or to guard
the border against foreign powers* Some of these
families were of pure Magyar blood, still more of them,
peifaaps, were of native origin and had been Magyarised
by contact with the royal court, but the difference was
immaterial: in tradition and culture all alike had
become Magyar to the core*
Both these estates of nobiUty were represented in
the Diet.^ The magnates ordinarily overshadowed the
minor gentry, but since they were equally Magyar in
their point of view, they consistendy directed the Diet^s
activities in the Magyar interest, and whenever less
oligarchic tendencies prevailed, it was always the body
of the Magyar freemen, never the tmenfranchised mass
of the subject nationalities, that made its voice heard in
pariiament* Thus the Hungarian Diet, unlike the diets
of Bohemia and Tyrol, showed a strong national bias
from the first, and particularist traditionalism passed
over into nationalistic chauvinism more rapidly here
dian in any other part of the Hapsburg Empire*
Long before the struggle with absolutism was over
die Magyars gave unmistakable proof of their intentions
widi regard to the other nationalities in Hungary*
In 1848, when liberty seemed on the point of
triumph, the Serb population in the South-Eastem
part of the Alfold sent a deputation to the Htmgarian
Diet assembled at Pressburg* They expressed their
determinarion to aid the Magyars in defending the
As in Bngtatid^ the lepctsentatiQO wis based 00 a oountsr-
Z4B THE BALKANS
new-found liberties of their oommon country^ but
required the recognition of the Serb language as the
official medium in Serb bcalities* The Magyar
ministry refused to consider their claim. Magyar,
they declared, must be the only language of administra-
tion in the whole kii^dom of Hungary, and when the
Serb leaders refused their allegiance on sudi terms as
these, Kossuth replied that ** then the sword must
decide between them/'
The ruin of the Magyars' hopes in the following year
was largely due to the dread with which the rest of the
Hungarians looked forward to their success. All other
nationalities in the kingdom sympathised with the
Hapsburg cause, and the Serbs, at least, fought valiantly
on its behalf. When the events of z866 enabled the
Magyars to snatch victory out of defeat, the forebod-
ings of their alien fellow-citizens were more than realised*
To the remaining inhabitants of the Hapsbuxg Mon-
archy the Ausgleich brought some measure of relief
from the intolerable regime of the 'fifties: for the
subject populations of Hungary it opened the gk)omiest
page of a precarious history.
The Compromise with die Germans of Austria and
the Hapsburg Dynasty delivered Hungary into the hand
of the Magyar Liberal Party. If the Liberals of Austria
correspond to the Rnglish Radicals of 1833, we can
only liken their Magyar namesakes to the men of 1688.
The ** Glorious Revolution " was heralded with a
flourish of trumpets, and the tale has been continually
enhanced by conventional eloquence ; yet in Hut^^ary,
as in Engkmd, the ** era of free institutions " merely
established the ascendancy of a dose oligardiy .
The Hungarian magnates, who in 1867 emerged
victorious from nearly a century of political wac£aae>
HUNGARY 149
leptoduoed both the virtues and the vices of the English
\ini^^ They treasured an ingrained tradition of
statesmanship that has been valuable to the backward
majority of their ootmtrymen, and experience had made
than convinced haters of certain pernicious political
ideab ; but they were not concerned to practise their
principles too pedantically, and in the last resort they
subordinated all scruples to the retention of their power*
The Liberalism of the Magyar Whigs was more
than a veneer* In questions of religion, for instance,
Ihrngpay remained true to her traditions of toleration**
But diey were fanatical nationalists, and the whole
political energy of the party rapidly became absorbed in
a campaign of Magyarisation*
Magyar chauvinism has been of a different stamp
£tom Ae policy of any German party in Austria. The
Austrian Germans have always been content to dominate
dieir fellow-nationalities. The Magyars, however, were
less civilised than the Germans, and they bore a much
larger proportion to the total population of their
'Tbe ooowfvatiofi of tttt Wh^ fainiliiw dependted on the systetn
qC ** Batui/* which had developed in the seventeenth century* In
Hnngary the consolidation of landed estates was sdU more drasticalljir
pRxnoied by a bw forbidding any noble to alienate his land* Ths
SMBine was introduced by Louis L in 1351, and remained in force tiU
1848.
'Hnneary is divided between many creeds* The Ronum Church
dfam its adherents from three of the races Magyars^ Germans and
Slovaks— and accounted in 2900 for nearly 49% of the population.
CalvittiBm, the nest strongest sect (14%), is confined to the Magyars*
All the Serbs and a su^ority of the Rotmuuis are orthodox (ia%)# while
^ remainder of the Roumans and all the Ruthenes are Uniats (zi%),
obsBTfiug the Orthodox ritual but owning allegiance to the Pope.
Luihsfantmi (Tjf %) is common to Slovaks mi Gmnans*
The era of Turkish rule in Hungary was contemporary with the
Otfbolic reaction. While the Hapsburgs were savagely repressing
PWKisfiiifrim in the territories under their control, the Turks extended
their toleration to all Christian sects in the Alf61d, and the Magyar
CdviniMs m revolt against the tyranny of Vienna often made common
cause with the Moslem across the bocder* In the autonomous princt-
V^ikf of Transjrlvania Protestantism was the official religioa*
150 THE BALKANS
country* They aimed at nothing less than the extirpa-
tion of other languages and cultures, and the ultimate
conversion to their own nationality of every inhabitant
of the Hungoiiaai Kingdom*
The methods for obtaining this result which were
inaugurated by the Magyar Liberals after 1867 were an
imitation on a far larger scale of Prussia's policy on
her Polish frontier* Nothing comparable to them has
been perpetrated in Western Europe for at least a
century. To find an English parallel we must hark
back once more to the Whigs of 1688, and call to mind
the repression of the Catholics by the British administra-
tion in Ireland during the blade era that followed the
Batde of the Boyne*
The Magyars, like the Russians, Ottoman Turks and
other peoples on the outskirts of European civilisation,
are ostentatious of theoretical enlightenment, but their
borrowed idealism serves to cloak the survival of
realities which have ceased to be possible further West*
By the new constitution all citizens of Hux^;ary were
declared equal before the law without distinction of
race, and were expressly guaranteed the enjoyment of
their national individuality* Yet the same constitution
recognises Magyar as the only language of state, and
the other tongues have been jealously excluded from
official use*
This ordinance is perpetually in evidence* In
ptu*ely Slovak or Rouman towns the names of the streets
are posted up in Magyar, and the name of the place itself
is Magyarised in official parlance* On the state railways
the Magyar language has a monopoly: time-tabtes,
notices, and even the tickets are printed in Magyar
alone, and Magyar is the administrative langu^e of the
railway staff* The same thing applies to all other
HUNGARY Z5I
public services* Magyar is the sole medium in which
their business is conducted*
It might be answered that these are superficialities*
"The meticubus enforcement of Magyar is childish
rather than oppressive* Official formulas are easily
learnt by rote* If Englishmen or Americans who know
no JDreign language can still travel without incon-
venience on the Continent, the Slovak peasant ought
not to be at a loss on a Hungarian railway* Moreover,
some general measure of linguistic tmiformity is essential
if the various nationalities of Htmgary are to be organised
at all in a single state* The Welsh citizen of Great
Britain and the Breton citizen of France are not outraged
by the ubiquitousness of the English and French tongues*
Why should not Roumans and Slovaks be as reasonable
as they< In almost every European state there are
minorities of alien speech, to whom the ** national **
language is merely a lingua franca. It is true that in
Kii^^ary litde more than half the popubtion inherit
from their parents the ruling tongue ; yet if the absolute
maiority of the Magyar-speaking element is slight, they
are in a great relative majority over any other single
linguistic group in the population* If Magyar were
deposed from its supremacy, no other language current
to Htmgary wotdd be qualified to take its place* It is
tiofortunate that Hungary is such a medley of races,
but the &tdt lies with history, and not with the Magyar
statesmen of the last half-century*^'
The Magyar would thus defend the Hungarian
language-ordinances as a necessity of state, yet more
than petty inconvenience is involved : the measure
places half the popubtion at a serious disadvantage in
fiice of the other half « It gives those who speak Magyar
native tongue an undue monopoly of pubhc
152 THE BALKANS
service* The state itself must suffer by forfeiting the
assistance of some of its most capabk citizens*
Again the Magyar will have a ready answer. ** We
Magyars/' he will say, '* have a much higher standard of
education and culture than the other inhabitants of our
country* Power gravitates towards efficiency, and even
if no hmguage-ordinanoes had been passed, the Magyars
would have found themselves in control of die Hungarian
state/'
This also is true* In 1867 the Magyars were ahead
of the rest in education, and they have likewise main*
tained their lead in the meanwhile* Yet the history of
education in Htmgary during this period should put
the Magyar apologist to silence*
The Magyars have ensured their superiority by
paralysing their neighbours' progress rather than by
progressing themselves* If the subject nationalities
are more and not less illiterate now than they were fifty
years ago, it is because the Magyar government has
closed practically all their secondary, and the great
majority of their primary schools, and has made it
increasingly hard to obtain instruction in any but the
Magyar tongue. The Magyars' political monopoly
was or^;inally justified by culture, but they have
perverted politics to the monopolisation of culture
itself by grotesquely uncultured means* Under these
drctunstances the relative degree of education attained
at present by the Magyars and their fellow-dtizens loses
all significance as a standard of political valtte*
Hungary, however, is at least a constitutional country*
Why, then, have the minor nationalities failed to redress
their wrongs by constitutional pressure i They amount
to litde less than half the population* Surely they
oould return such a formidable contingent of represents^
HUNGARY 153
tives to the parliament at Buda«*Pest, that Magyar
fflinistries would be driven to a compromise i
This door is closed because the government of
Hungary is not constitutional in the modem sense : it
is only called so by cotutesy* The country still awaits
its ** Great Reform Bill/' and the mediaeval franchise,
which Great Britain sloughed off in z832# has here
endured till the present day* We have said that the
Magyar politicians of 1867 were Whigs : we shall
discover their '* rotten boroughs *' in the non-Magyar
OMistituencies. They were as well-veised in corruption
as English politicians were in the eighteenth century,
and they reinforced bribery by intimidation* In non-
Magyar constituencies the precedent of overawing
" opposition '^ voters by the presence of troops has
become well-established, and the device has more than
once led to bloodshed which wotdd have been called
** massacre " if it had occurred in Turkey*
No redress, therefore, is possible through parliament,
because the leaders of the non-Magyar nationalities
can never obtain a seat there* They are rigidly debarred
from a political career, and even in the neutral sphere
of literature, art, history, and all that is included under
the name of culture, diey are made to suffer for the
privilege of leadership*
The Magyars have adopted the Greek tyrant's policy
of ** cutting off the tallest ears in the cornfield*'' Any
form of distinction renders a Slovak, Rouman or Serb
dtixm of Hungary immediately suspect to his country's
police. Personal hberty in Hungary suffers direly from
the want of a Habeas Corpus Act* The laws of oon-
spincy are so comprehensive that arrest without
specification of the charge and protracted imprisonment
befofe trial are events of normal occurrence* When
*,
Z54 THE BALKANS
it is remembered that, in virtue of the language-ordin-
ances, all proceedif^ in court have to be conducted
exclusively in the Magyar langu2^e, the picture of racial
oppression is complete*
This atrocious system was eleborated by the Liberal
Party which came into power in 1867*
The Liberal regime was protracted. Deik, the
statesman of the Ausgleich, was succeeded in 1876
by Count Coloman Tisza, the Magyar Walpole, who
remained uninterruptedly in office tmtil iBgo. His
resignation in that year started the party on its decline,
but its fall was staved off for a dozen years longer by
the raising of those ecclesiastical issues which Austria
had setded as early as i868* In 1902 the Liberals
were first challenged on their real standing-ground^
the maintenance of the Ausgleich.
A radical movement had been gaining strength, which
aspired to pass beyond compromise to independence.
The ideal of the "" Left '" was self-sufficiency* They
wished to see Hungary take her place as a sovereign
unit, on an entire equality with the other states of
Europe.
In our analysis of the Danubian Monarchy we have
noted that great economic difficulties stood, and always
will stand, in the way of such a development. The
oidy chance of overcoming them would be the enthusi-
astic co-operation for this end of the whole Hungarian
people. The first object, therefore, of the Magyar
Left should have been the conciliation of the non-
Magyar nationalities. They shotdd have driven their
Liberal opponents from office on this issue, justified
their own installation by a complete reversal of the
prevailing chauvinism and a definitive solution of the
racial problem on democratic lines, and then joined
HUNGARY 155
battle with Austria and the Dynasty on the question of
Independence with the whole country at their back*
bstead of this, they chose the language-question in its
most inflammatory form as the chief plank in their plat-
form* They demanded the substitution of Magyar for
German as the executive language in all the Hungarian
regiments of the Joint Army, with the avowed object
of promoting the Magyarisation of the non-Magyar
Hungarian conscripts.
This was a simultaneous challenge to the Liberals,
die subject nationalities, and the Crown, for the
Ausgleidi had left the supreme control of the Army
in the King-Emperor^s hands, and Francis Joseph was
convinced that the efficiency of the service and there-
with the safety of the Monarchy as a whole depended
upon strict uniformity of organisation*
The sovereign failed to maintain the Liberals in office*
His persistent summoning of Liberal ministries was
countered by obstruction on the Opposition's part*
Count Stephen Tisza, the son of Coloman, who took
office in 1903 as a forlorn hope, tried to meet the situation
by revolutionising parliamentary procedure, but he
merely provoked parliamentary anarchy as deplorable as
die hrndc-down at Vienna in 1897* At the beginning
of Z905 he appealed to the electors and suflTered utter
defeat* The Liberal Party was dead, and a coalition
of die radical groups had won the leadership of the
Magyar nation*
The King-Emperor, however, refused to give in.
He proceeded to govern without parliament's assistance,
and towards the end of the year he took the offensive
against the Coalition by engineering a bill for universal
suflEcage* Their attitude towards the national question
made the Coalition defenceless against such an attack.
156 THE BALKANS
and they surrendered at discretion as soon as it became
certain that a bill of identical purport was on the verge
of passing into law in the Austrian half of the Monarchy.
At the beginning of 1906 a G>alition ministry wfaidi
had renounced the ** Magyar word of command ** was
at last called into office, but their quiver had been
emptied of its arrows.
Towards the end of 1908 they introduced a carefully
planned reform bill, which would have advanced the
Htmgarian franchise from the mediaeval to the Prussian
level. The electorate was to be increased very con-
siderably in numbers, the qualification for su£Erage was
to be literacy, the electors were to be classified acoordii^
to degrees of education, and the more highly qualified
were to possess more than one vote. Political power
was thus represented as the privilege of culture, but
since the dominant Magyars had long been engaged in
exterminating all non-Magyar culture within the borders
of Hungary, the bill was calculated to produce a demo-
cratic impression without extending the franchise
beyond the limits of the Magyar race.
It was of little consequence, therefore, that the
ministry's main programme of independence eclipsed
their perfunctory efforts towards internal reform before
the franchise bill had time to pass into law. Its mere
formulation proved once and for all that the subject
nationahties had nothing to expect from M^;yar
Radicalism,^ and in the trial of strength widi Austria
and the Crown to which the G>alition now committed
itself, Francis Joseph was still able to wield his master-
weapon.
^ Aldiottg^ one of the oomponents of the Coalition was the '* People's
partjr/Y^clerical group whidi had taken the cause of the nationalitses
dito its prosranune*
HUNGARY 157
Early in 1909 the more extreme elements of the
Left forced the G>alition premier^ Dr. Wekerle, to
open the campaign for economic autonomy with die
demand for a separate Hungarian state bank. The
Crown refused to consider the question so long as the
franchise remained unreformed : such a momentous
proposal, Francis Joseph declared, must be endorsed by
a parliament truly representative of the whole Hungarian
people*
This shrewdly-aimed blow broke up the Coalition
into fragments. The moderates and the intransigeants
were each strong enough to stalemate the other, no
ministry could be formed, and in 1909, as in 1905,
parliamentary government was suspended* At the
beginning of 1910 Francis Joseph appointed a ministry
of '' king's friends ** under the leadership of Count
Khuen-Hedervary, a notorious political ** boss "" who
had thoroi^;hly learnt his trade during a twenty-years
tenure of the Croatian vice-royalty.^ The Hedervary
cabal scattered promises broadcast to all aggrieved
elements in the country, and the elections conducted
under its auspices next stmmier surpassed even Hun-
garian precedent in their corruption* When the new
parliament met, the Count had a docile majority at his
beck, and the Magyars saw their constitutional tradition
reduced to a farce*
The lesson sank deep* Khuen-Hedervary was too
shady a diaracter to serve as more than a stop-gap, and
when he vanished from the scene all sections of Magyar
opinion were more than content to accept Count
Stephen Tisza once more* Tisza remains in office at
the present moment, and his restoration means that the
evolution of Magyar politics has come to a dead stop*
' Sec Scctiott B*
158 THE BALKANS
He stands for a reaction to the programme of 1867 :
compromise with Austria and the Dynasty, war to the
knife against the non-Magyar nationalities in Htmgary
itself. The Magyars have realised that democradsa-
tion and Magyarisation are incompatible, and they have
preferred to sacrifice progress to chauvinism*
Thus Hungary and Austria have dive^ed profoundly
in their political history since the year of the Ausgleich.
In 1867 Hungary possessed the more enlightened
tradition of the two, and the initiative towards constitu-
tional government came from die Magyar side* Then
for a time they marched abreast ; but when die problem
of nationality emerged like a steep cliff athwart their
path, Austria pressed forward, and after a hazardous
struggle attained the summit : Hungary halted, and
without even scanning the cliff's face for a handhold,
turned about and began to retrace her steps.
Between 1867 and 1914 the political standard of the
Magyar nation has grieviously deteriorated*
The results of our sturvey warrant the assumption
that if the two Central-European monarchies suffer
defeat in the present war, the subject nationalities of
Hungary, when the plebiscite at last enables them to
express their desire, will act like the Polish subjects of
Germany, and vote to the last man for liberation from
die Magyar state* We have to examine whether their
secession from Hungary will involve the disruption of
the Danubian Empire*
Just as in the case of Poland, their extrication will
necessarily be incomplete* Geography has made
Hungary a natural unit, sundered from her neighbours
and knit together within herself by pronunent physical
barriers, and within this area the races are extraordinarily
HUNGARY 159
mtemiingled. Certain xninorities will therefore remain
fast in prison, and it will be the first duty of the Euro-
pean Congress to convert their enforced abode into a
ixMise of liberty, before it discusses the destiny of their
more fortunate companions who are able to effect their
escape.
The parties to the European Conference must
goarantee the observance of the excellent law regarding
the rights of nationalities, which has nominally been
valid in Hungary since it was passed in 1868, but has
remained in practice a dead letter.
Critics will point out that such a guarantee would be
an intense humiliation for the Magyar people, that they
would only submit to it under constraint, and that every
time a Slovak or German-speaking Htmgarian appealed
from Magyar injustice to the guarantors, there would be
danger of racial war in Hungary and of a conflagration
m Europe. This is true, but it is equally certain that
dse minorities will no longer submit to Magyar mis-
government, and that if the Concert of Europe does not
help them, they will help themselves, and tmhesitat-
tngty appeal for intervention to the several states of their
own respective nationality which lie immediately beyond
the Hungarian frontier. The evil inheritance of the
past cannot be charmed away in a moment, and no
reconstruction of the Hungarian state will leave all
parties content. In either event, therefore, the immedi-
ate future will be fraught with anxiety, and the most we
can do is to initiate Htmgary into a more promising
career than she has followed in the immediate past.
If some hearts must still be sore, it is better that the
Magyars should chafe at restrictions upon racial persecu-
tion than that the minor nationalities should groan
under exposure to it.
F
i6o THE BALKANS
From the sentimental point of view, we need
have little scruple in wotmding the Magyars' pride.
Individually they are an attractive people, and they
have known how to keep the sympathies of Western
Europe alive on their behalf by harping on the tragedy
of 1849 ; but since the year of the Compromise they
have behaved like the servant in the parable, who was
forgiven by his lord and then seized his fellow-servant
by the throat. They cannot altogether escape the
hypocrite's retribution*
In the interests of common justice, therefore, Europe
must guarantee the alien enclaves in Magyar territory*
Yet a guaranteed re-oi^anisation of the Hungarian state
on still more drastic lines might well be in the best
interests of the Magyars themselves, for it would be
their one chance of inducing the much larger blocks of
alien population which are not debarred from secession
by geography, to hold fast of their own free will to their
present allegiance*
The principal terms of such a guaranteed re-settle-
ment should run as follows :
(i«) Local self-government should be re-organised.
At present it is based upon the medieval counties,
which are very unequal in size and entirely out of
rebdon to racial botmdaries* These county divisions
should be recast into new local units, standardised
approximately in area and population like the French
departments, and each department should be made
racially homogeneous as far as possible* This
would give every nationality in Hungary a number
of local units more or less proportional to its per-
centage in the total population of the country*
The department should employ its national language
as its official medium of administration, and should
HUNGARY i6i
be the basts of electoral organisation for the central
Hungarian parliament.
(iL) There should be no parliamentary devolution to
national blocks* The races are so interlaced that it
lOttld be impossible to carve out areas including all the
Rouman or all the German inhabitants of Hungary,
aod endow them with extensive Home Rule* The
various national territories are too scattered for effective
Qfganisation as unities.
(iii«) On the other hand, national education and all
public activities that contribute to national culture
should be placed under the exclusive control of national
ammiittees, consisting of the deputies elected to the
central Hungarian parliament by the various depart-
ments belotiging to each particular nationality. These
omimittees should share between them the annual
budget voted for public education by the parliament as
a whole, in proportion to the percentage of the total
population which they respectively represent.
(iv.) All questions of universal interest, such as
ammmnications and defence, social and economic
development, fiscal relations with other countries,
consular service and foreign policy in general, should
remain as heretofore within the province of the central
l,^ now to be elected on the new departmental
If the non-Magyar nationalities of Hungary were
assured some such reforms as these, it is conceivable
that geographical and economic considerations would
prevail with them over hatred of the Magyars and desire
for incorporation in their own nationd states; but
* And therefore presumably subject to the conditions of the Ausgleich,
nnlcB other ctreinnstances lead the Hungarian parliament to terminate
the connection with Austria*
i6a THE BALKANS
piedictioii is impossible, and we must reckon with the
coQtif^ency that certain elements may in any event
secede.' Will the cohesion of the whole Hapsburg
Monarchy be endangered by their secession i
The German colonies in the Alfdld and in the Slovak
hills are too widely dispersed for extrication,* and the
Sbvaks themselves do not come into question from our
immediate standpoint. They may be eager to secede
from Hungary, but they would only do so in order to
coalesce with the Tchechs of Austria. They have no
blood-brethren outside the frontiers of the Danubian
Empire, and the satisfaction of their national aspirations
would affea the internal organisation of the whole unit
rather than its solidarity towards the outer world. We
are left with the Ruthenes, Roumans and Serbs.
(i.) The Roumans are the strongest non-Magyar
nationality in Hungary, and we have seen that they are
concentrated in Transylvania and the adjoining strip
of the AlfOld, towards the border of the national
Roumanian Kingdom.* Their transference, therefore,
horn Hungary to Roumania would seem a natural
' In BpiU of Magyarisatton, the Slovaks, Ruthenei and Roumans
have steadily been dwwigagirg tbenuelves since 1867 from the Magyar
toils. The growth of ■ native intellt^wum has heightened tbett
national coosctouuuss, and in recent yfan the cunent of eaiigtation
U) the VSA. has brought wealth into their dutricts. Peasans who
have made tbeii littfe jnlt in America have been buying out the big
estates of the Whig magnates, and thereby freeing their soil tram the
■ Though the Germans of Hungary would escape from die Magyars
if they could, for the Ausgleich has secived them no better tteatment
than the other nationalities. While the Magyars have been in alliance
with the Germaos of Austria, they have not hesitated to " Magjnrise "
the two miUion Germans in their midst. For the distribution of the
Uiter see Map III.
■ The free Roumans of the present kingdom are jmbaUv dacended
from Transyivaman settlers, mo during the early Middle Ages pushed
out through th? Carpathians and established themselves in the optn
w
HUNGARY 163
appUcation of the national principle to political group-
ing. Since Transylvania is hardly less isolated from
the Alfold than from the Roumanian plains^ the geo-
gr^hical objections would be comparatively slight,
wfafle Roumania on her part would gain immensely in
territorial compactness by the incorporation of this
region. At present she embraces Transylvania on two
sides, as the young moon holds the old moon in its arms,
and she is eager to grow to her full orb.
Unfortunately, however, the heart of Transylvania is
tenanted by an important non-Rouman poptdation.
Three counties are almost exclusively inhabited by the
Szekels, a flying column of the Magyar host which
became entangled and isolated in the Transylvanian
hills, when the main body of the nation pressed down
into the AlfSld. There are also the Saxon towns, which
are the most important German endaves in all Hungary.
The Szekel and Saxon districts cannot be separated
bom the Rouman zone which hems them in. The
whole ge(^;raphical block must be transferred or retained
together, and if the status quo does injustice to two-
and-tfaree-quarter millions of Rotunans, the alternative
would merely reverse the parts, and put over a million
Saxons and Szekels in an identical plight.^ We are in
presence of a case where a very considerable minority
mtist be disappointed. The decision probably depends
upon the action of the Roumanian Kingdom in the
^ The ocosus of 1900 revealed the foUowing figures : —
Saaons 333,000 9.5%
Szekeb 8z5/)oo 33«a%
Rotunaiis in Transyhrania . 1,397,000 56^%
Total pop. of Transvlvania • • a,4A<:/xx) xoo.o%
RoomaDs m die Alf 61a • . x,388/xx)
Total pop* of whole block • • 3,833,000 (of whom die
Roumaaa constituted 7a.43%)«
i64 THE BALKANS
present crisis. If Roumania intervenes in the war in
favour of the Allies, the prize will fall into her grasp :
if she remains neutral till hostilities cease, her claims
will not obtain preference in the subsequent settlement.
(ii.) The Seri) settlements in the Alifold are conter-
minous with those of the Roumans. They skirt the
Northern bank of the Danube from a point opposite the
junction of the Morava tributary as far upstream as
the junction of the Drave, but they are bewilderingly
entangled with German and Magyar endaves* The
majority of them lie within the ** Banat of Temesvar/'
a square field delimited in the South-Eastem comer
of the Alfold by the Transylvanian mountains on the
East, and the Maros, Theiss and Danube rivers on die
other three sides.
The Banat was one of the principal theatres of
eighteenth-century colonisation : the Roumans have
established themselves in the Eastern half of it, and
the Western half is divided between Germans and
Serbs, while the Magyar element is almost negligible*
If the Rouman section became detached from
Hungary, the annexation of the remainder to Serbia
would be a logical corollary.^ The courses of die
Theiss and the Maros offer a good frontier in this
quarter for the Magyar state, and the Serbian national
kingdom South of the Danube will be anxious to incor-
porate its ** irredenta ** on the river's further shore,
in order to remove Belgrade beyond the range of siege-
artillery planted on Hungarian soil. If, however, the
Rouman part of the Banat fails to break away &om
Hungary, its fate will be decisive for the Serb districts
^ This would inyolvt the transference of the German endavcs m the
Banat as well ; but they are doomed in any case to be memd m a
state of alien nationality, and any alternative would be a xtdief from
Mai
HUNGARY 165
15 wdL They are no more than a wedge dnven in
between die Magyar and Rouman populations of the
Aifajd,^ and could not be excluded from the Hungarian
frontief if the country on both sides of them remained
within it*
{iii.) The Ruthenes occupy the opposite comer of the
Aifdki, round the head-waters of the Theiss* They
number less than half a million, and are divided from
their Magyar nei^bours by no natural boundary, while
die other twenty-five millions who speak the same
dialect' live on the furdxer side of the Carpathians.
The geographical factor, therefore, strongly favours the
existing political situation, yet the force of national
antipathy and sympathy is more imperious still, and
die mountain barrier is not impassable* Two lines of
railway traverse that section of the range under the
shadow of which the Hungarian Ruthenes dwell, and one
of die routes is the famotis Vereczka Pass, which gave
entrance into the land first to the Magyars and then to
the Ruthenes themselves, and has witnessed the passage
of Russian invaders during the operations of the
present war* It is therefore possible that the Ruthenes
may set geography at defiance, and throw in their lot
with the vast body of their race which stretches tmin-
terruptedly Eastward from the Carpathians' further
slopes to the upper waters of the Don.
These, then, are the three instances in which Hungary
is liable to sufifer territorial loss. Our discussion has
yielded no certain conclusions,' but it has sufiiced to
show that secession in these quarters will not jeopardise
the continued existence of the Hapsbui^ Empire. Even
> See Map IIL > See Ch. VIII. C.
* Rectifications of the Hungarian frontier are indeed so problematical
that we have not attempted to indicate possibilities in the maps attached
to this book.
i66 THE BALKANS
if all possibilities were actualised, die Magyar Kingdom
wotild still be left with nearly twelve million inhabitants ^
in occupation of a compact and productive territory*
The balance between Austria and Hungary would, of
course, be destroyed, but the break-down of die Dual
System might strengthen the inward cohesion of the
Monarchy by opening die way for a federal re-construc-
tion of the whole on genuinely national lines. Even
if the losses in Galida and Hungary were serious enough
to degrade the Danubian unit f]x>m die ranks of the
Great Powers, it might survive as an essential member
in the re-organised fraternity of European nations*
We have now examined die state of die national
problem in die Kingdom of Hungary, as well as in the
** Kingdoms and Lands Represented in die Reichsrath
at Vienna,^' without discovering any ulcer fatal to the
life of the Hapsburg organism ; but our examination
of the Trans-Leithanian half of the Monarchy is not
yet complete* In addition to die Hungarian realm,
the ** Crown of St* Stephen ** comprises the *' Kingdom
of Croatia-Slavonia ** beyond the Southern bank of the
Drave*
This Hungarian dependency has implicated the
Hapsburg Monarchy in the natk>nal problem of the
Sottdiem Slavs*
mat
itioB of nmiguy willuii ptf.scnt
^ (aooQfdtng to oemas of 1900) 16,838/300
Possible ksssts tfttr tbt piutat war, caico-'
latKl atammmim--
Rounuos» Swksli and ?8aOTW • ^Ji^/Mso
(»)
(c)
SMMQumsisly • • • • 2i5^/)oo
{ij Rumtacs 4a3tOoo
Total of possible ksssts • 4,953/xx>
MiBimmi ftsaaiiidcr • • • 1x^79'/'^'^
Southern
S--'^ ^-N
^w^
i
i
^
hern
r
.r^
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
167
.^va
B* The Southern Slavs
is not co-extensive with the Middle Danube
: ^ it is bounded by the Drave, and the Danube
a considerable area South as well as North of
le*
tributaries which reach the river from the Right
in this section of its course, take their rise in a
of limestone mountains linking the Alps with the
le of the Balkan peninsub. The chief affluent
Save* Its source is close to that of the Drave, in
igle between the main chain of the Alps, where
bend North-Eastward towards Vienna, and this
Lc ** branch, where it falls away in the direction
Adriatic coast* The two streams follow a parallel
The Drave draws its one auxiliary, the Mur,
the Eastern face of the Austrian Alps on its Left
: the Save is enriched by several large rivers from
ight,* which spring from the Dinaric watershed
[pursue their tortuous way through the hilly country
[intervenes. Swelled by the united volume of these
\, the Save finally enters the Danube at a point
Semlin and Belgrade, nearly a hundred and
miles below the confluence of the Drave.
le second affluent is the Morava, which flows into
lube from the South, about fifty miles further
Its drainage-area extends from the Drina on
fWest to the extremity of the Balkan mountains on
Bast, a chain which continues the line of the Car-
on the other flank of the ** Iron Gates,*' and
)letes the partition of the Lower from the Middle
of the Danube.
See Map 00 p. Z05 ; abo Map IIL ' Uiia^ Vrbas, Boana, Dium*
i68 THE BALKANS
The system of the Morava and the Save, and in fact
the whole region between the Drave, the Iron Gates,
and the sea, was occupied in the seventh century aj).
by a swarm of the great Slavonic host, ^^ch found its
way throt^ the Moravian Gap and the Marchfeld, and
drifted down upon the Adriatic coast*
This flying column of the Slavonic invasion did not
remain undifierentiated within itself* Its reai^uard
tarried under the lea of the Alps, and is represented
by the modem Sbvenes* Its vanguard crossed the
watershed of the Middle Danube, spread out fanwoe
towards the ^ean and the Black Sea, and has developed
into the Bulgarian nationality* Both these detached
groups have evolved racial and dialectical characteristics
which distinguish them sharply from the main body
whidi lies between*^ We will leave them aside for the
moment, and concentrate our attention upon the btter,
for whom we will reserve the tide of " Southern Slavs."
The ^ Southern Slavs,** in this specialised sense of
the name, speak an absolutely homogeneous dialect,
and occupy a compact geographical area, extending
from Agnun (Zs^reb) to Uskub (Skoplye), and fron
Belgrade to Salona* They have thtis become immediate
neighbours of the Magjrars, who two centuries later
descended upon the country on the furdier bank of tbe
Danube and the Drave, and at the present time the tivo
races are approximately equal in numerical strength,'
but in every other respect their history has been
strikingly different*
The rich, unbroken levels of the AlfSld offer a natunl
cradle for a strong, unified national state : the Sotsthen
>The Bulgars derive their name, but nothing else, from a
Stavooic catte of nomad conquerors off the steppes.
* Either language is now spoken by between ogfat and nine miOiDfls
^peofrfe*
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 169
Slavs, on the odier hand, have been grievously handi-
capped by their physical environment* The gaunt
tibs of the Dinaric Alps, which shoulder the Danube*
system away from the Adriatic, are not kindly to Man*
The lodcHnsfface cropping out through the scanty soil
sets a figkl limit to the growth <rf population, whik the
scanty communities that maintain dieir existence are
isolated from one another by the parallel ranges of
mountains and the rushing rivers which carve their
way among them* Even the Adriatic coast-line, which
ri^ Norway in the maze of its fjords and islands, is
of little avail for internal communication* The land
opens towards the Danube, and the watershed rises
hard above the shore* The rivers invariably flow inland,
and only one, the Narenta, drains South-Westward to
the sea*
Such a land oould never have beoome an independent
focus of human life* Its physical ftmction as a link
between the motmtain-masses of Central and South-
Eastern Europe has conditioned the history of its in-
habitants, and doomed them to be the victims and the
spoil in the warfare of alien worlds*
The country of the Southern Slavs has been debat-
able ground from the begmning* Christtanity pene-
trated it simultaneously from opposite directions*
The Croats in the North-West were converted from the
Catholic centres of Aquileia and Saltburg : Ordiodox
missaonaries from Byzantium mounted the valley of the
Vardar and secured the allegiance of the Serbs in the
Morava-basin*^
* Gnat jod Serb weie in origm two kmdftd tribes^ ideatkai with the
Chiobat aad Soiab who lemained Ndctfa of the Camutuaoi. The
oaoKs have siadaaUy been adapted tt> denote all Soitth-SlaEfonic
ipeahcfs who betoag respectively to the Catholic and te Orthodox
Cbuich, irrespective of political grouping or local habitat*
tTo THE BALKANS
The independent career of both these tribes was
brief* The Croatian principality flourished in the
eleventh century, but in zzoa it was annexfid to the
txpsmddxig realm of the Magyars, and for the next three
centuries Hungary and Venice fought for the sovereignty
of the land, till the dispute was settled by a oomptomise.
About 1430 Venice finally established her rule along
the Dalmatian littoral, while Hungary retained her
suzerainty over the hinterland.
The fortunes of Serbia were grander* In Z159 ^
House of Nemanya came to the front, and steadily built
up a national state which attained its ssenith in the
fourteenth century* Stephen Dushan, Tsar of the
Serbs from 1336 to 1356 a*d*, ruled from the Danube
to the SgtzDL, and threatened to beside Constantinople
itself, but disaster followed dose upon his triumphs*
The year before Stephen's death, the Ottoman Turks
had occupied Gallipoli on the European shore of the
Dardanelles : thirty years bter ^ they fought the Serbs
in the heart of their country on the field of Kossovo,*
and their crushing victory made an end of Serbian
independence*
The advance of the Turks ajs^ravated the disunion of
the Southern Slavs by introducing another creed* In
the twelfth century the Paulidan heresy from Armenia
had obtained a footing in the region,' and the nobility
of Bosnia, a Hungarian dependency on the banks of
the Bosna River, embraced it as their national faith.
Their choice isolated them from their neighbotus, and
• ifixBovo Pdlye»'' Field of BUckbuds.''
' It was brought by Armenian subjects of the Bast Roman Bmpire,
whom the Byzantine government had failed to convert to OrthoaoKy,
and had punished for their contumacy by exiling them to the opposite
border of the Imperial territory. The Slavonic converts they made in
their new home took the tide of Bogumils (** theo-t>hiloi '').
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 171
the breach was only widened by the stubbornness with
wbich they dung to it during three centtuies of indis-
cnininate persecution : when the enemies at their gates
succumbed successively to the Turk, the Bosniaks
mdoomed him as a deliverer. Their creed had origi-
nated on the borders of blam, perhaps under Moslem
inspiration, and there was mudi in common between
die two religions. When the conqueror offered them
the traditional alternative between conversion and
hek>tage, they did not hesitate. Before the dose of the
fifteenth century the Bosniak landowners had adopted
blam en masse, and were transformed at a stroke from
oppressed outcasts to equals and comrades of the ruling
face. The change in their position, however, was not
feally fundamental. Their new-found prosperity was
destined to flow and ebb with the Turkish tide, but they
have held to their second ** apostasy ** as tenadously
as to their first, and have remained sundered in sympathy
from their South-Slavonic kinsmen who share the same
speedi.
In the sixteenth century the Southern Slavs were
diawn into the supreme struck between Christendom
and Islam. The Bosniaks had given their allegiance
to the Ottoman cause, and broken away from Htm^arian
suzerainty, but their example was not followed by the
other South-Slavonic dependendes of the Htmgarian
Crown. When Htmgary herself was prostrated in the
fatal battle of Mohacs,^ and the remnant of the Kingdom
elected the Hapsburg as its sovereign, the prindpalities
of Croatia and Slavonia* followed their suzerain's
»i5a6.
'Ooatsa is a strn> of territory eztendtng from the Drave to the Sea
m the extreme Norm-West of the South Slavonic area, along the Slovene
border. Stovonsa is the '* Mesopotamia '' tnteromted between the
Dnve and Danube on the one side and the Save on the other.
s
173 THE BALKANS
example. From 1527 to die present day, the Dynasty
has ruled this section of the South-Slavonic world by
hereditary right.
The battles between Austrian and Turk were decided
on the banks of the Danube, but the Dinaric mountaon-
i^one was the scene of fierce and continuous subsidiary
warfare. Durit^ two centuries of inconclusive strife
the Turkish cavalry sometimes penetrated ri^t up the
Save, and ravaged the Venetian plains at the head of
the Adriatic, while for nearly twenty years > the Haps-
burg standard was planted in Belgrade and the Austrian
frontier pushed far up the valley of the Morava.
Neither power, however, proved strong enough to
wrest from the other the undisputed dominion tA
the whole South-Slavonic region, and the Treaty of
Belgrade in 1739 terminated the struggle by a partition.
The whole of Croatia and Slavonia fell to tix Haps-
burg : the Ottoman retained Serbia and Bosnia. The
new frontier started * &om the Iron Gates, and followed
the course of the Danube, upwards as far as the junction
of the Save. Belgrade, in the South-Eastem angle
between the two rivers, remained a Turkish fortress,
and the Hapsburg frontier proceeded along the Save's
Northern bank, till it reached the point where the latter
river is joined by the Una. Hience it turned South-
Westwaid, first oonfonoing to the Una's winding, and
then taking an irregular course of its own across the
mountains, till it struck the coast opposite the island
of Pago.
This made the Hapsbu^ Empire immediately
conterminous with the province of Dalmatia, which
the Venetians had managed to defend against Ottoman
■ Sec Mapll
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 173
aggresBioa, ever since it finally passed into their hands
in die fifteenth century* Napoleon made an end <^
die Venetian Republic and cast her territories into the
meldng pot* In the general re-setdement of 18x4,
Dalmatia and Ragusa were definitively incorporated
in the Hapsburg dominions, and the whole Eastern
Uttoral of the Adriatic, from Trieste to the fjord of
Cattaro, thus came to be united under the same Austrian
government. With this exception, however, the terri-
torial arrangements of 1739 still remained in force
when die events of 1866 forced the Danubian Monarchy
into the most recent phase of its history.
In the year of the Ausgleich the Monarchy's position
with regard to the Southern Slavs almost exacdy
rqModuced its relation towards the Italian nation
af^ the settlement of 1814* In both cases one section
of a nationality was included within the Hapsburg
frontier yNbHc the remainder lay beyond it, and the
Monardiy's Italian experience had proved that
such a situation was essentially unstable* A divided
nationality was bound to attain tmity in time* It might
achieve it within the compass of the greater Empire, if
the btter succeeded in advancing its frontier to include
the whole race, but the frontier could not remain
stationary* If it failed to advance it must retire, and
national tmity be realised at the Empire's expense by
the total secession of the nationality from its (organism*
In the Italian case we have seen that such secession
could occur without vital injury to the Monarchy's
structure : in the present instance failure involved far
more serious consequences* The Monarchy had just
been forced to accept its geographical destiny as a
Danubian state, and in the new development of its
hotory the Soudi-Slavonic region offered the necessary
174 THE BALKANS
avenue for expansion* Excluded from Germany and
Italy, Austria-Hungary must grow Eastward, or else
resign herself to paralysis, diminishment, and final
dissolution.
Since 1867, therefore, the attention of the Joint
Ministry for Foreign A£fairs has become increasingly
concentrated upon the South-Slavonic problem. The
Monarchy has never been faced by a graver issue, but
on the odier hand it has seldom enjoyed conditions so
favourable for a successful solution*
The South-Slavonic population within the frontier
included Orthodox as well as Catholic elements, and the
Dynasty had a strong traditional hold over both its Serb
and its Croat subjects* Each regarded the Hapsburg
as their saviour from the Turk. The Croat^s loyalty
was reinforced by religion, for he was a devoted clerical,
and Austria has never abandoned the rdle of the
leading Catholic state : the Serb was conciliated by
an exceptional measure of toleration* Imperial rescripts
of 1690 and 1 691 granted the Serb refugees in Hapsburg
territory complete freedom in the practice of their
ritual, and allowed them to organise an autonomous
churdi under the presidency of a patriarch established
at Karlowitz.
The erection of the ** Military Frontiers ** along the
Save, towards the close of Maria Theresa's reign,
transformed the South-Slavonic borderers into regular
soldiery, and in the stn^gles against Napoleon and the
Risorgimento, the Croat regiments were the flower of
the Austrian armies* To their enemies they were
merely notorious for the savagery they had acquired
in their warfare with the Turks, but the Dynasty they
served was deeply indebted to their admirable constancy*
In 1848 Croatia was the only non-German province
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 175
wfaidi never wavered in its loyalty, and in the Autumn
of that crucial year JellaiH^^ the '' Ban '" ' of the
kingdom, led across the Drave the first army that
attacked the Magyars in Francis Joseph^s name.
The relations between the Monarchy and the Southern
Slavs within the frontier were thus on an excellent foot-
ing, and the situation on the further side of it was not
incompatible with Austro-Htmgarian interests.
In this quarter the chief event since 1739 had been
the emergence of an autonomous Serb principality
in the basin of the Morava* The population of this
region revolted against Ottoman government in 1804,
and after a long, fluctuatix^ struggle, in which it received
support from Russia and Austria in turn, it extorted
the Stdtan's consent to Home Rule in 1817. The
Treaty of Adrianople, imposed on Turkey by Russia
after the war of 1828, stipulated for the confirmation
of this status, and the Sultan acknowledged Serbian
autonomy by a formal proclamation in 1830*
This development in South - Slavonic history had
left the Danubian Monarchy at a disadvantage. For
nearly a century after the second siege of Vienna,
Austria had been able to monopolise the part of sym-
pathiser, protector and possible saviour for all the
Turk's Christian subjects in Europe, till the crushing
bbwB inflicted upon Turkey by the Empress Catherine
enabled Russia to intnide herself as Atistria's rival*
The Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji in 1774 prepared
the ground for a general Russian protectorate over all
Christian populations in the Ottoman dominions. The
Serb revolt offered Mettemich an opportunity for
reasserting Austrian influence, but his extreme dread of
nationalism made him averse to supporting any mani-
* PMiottiiocd YeUacbit * ** Vicooy.'*
\ oa
176 THE BALKANS
festatkm oi it against any constituted autfaoiity 1
ever. By his over-k^cal policy he played into Russia's
bands. Russia followed up her advantage with dedsioa,
and -when Serbia started her new life under Russian
au^ces, the Danubian Monarchy found its rival
established on the very threshold of its Balkan doorway.
Ever since the turn of the Turkish tide in 1683, it had
been obvious that the ebb would never cease till all
Europe was free of 1^ flood. The Tu^'s presence
might be protracted, but it had become provisioiial,
and sooner or later he must vanish otit of the land.
The Treaty of Adiianople taught Austrian statesmen
that in playing for the Turk's inheritance they must
rcdun with Russia henceforward.
In 1867, therefore, die Monarchy's road Eastwards
was already overshadowed by the Russian doud, but
die dai^er, though fbrmidabte, mi^t still be braved
with impunity. The cloud might pass without 2 storm.
The Balkan drama was not yet played out. The
Serbs irfio had won their freedom with Rnssa's
aid were only a fraction of the race. The miqoTtty
still remained under Turkish rule, and the principality
in die Kbrava valley aspired to liberate a " Serbia
irredenta " of greater territorial extent than itself.
West of the River Drina lay the South-Slavonic province
of Bosnia, where more dian half the pc^mlatian -was
Ordiodox in religioa : Soudiwards round the iq>per
waters of the Motxn and its tributaries, the district of
Kossovo, once die focus of die patinial life, stiU awaited
its reden^>tion. Serbia and the Danubian Mooarv^y
were both tmder a vital necessity to advance in the same
direction, and both were obstructed by the same Turkish
occupant of the land. Why should they not advsmce
in unison bi satisfy their comnuo need at the Turk's
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 177
txpmst i Serbia had one supreme desire, the accom-
plishment of her national unity. Russia had left the
work half-done, and had alienated her protege into
the bargain, by intriguing to strengthen her influence
over her* Serbia was ready to throw herself into the
arms of any great power that would help her to complete
the realisation of her ideal* The refugee-communities
North of the Danube, which had become the diief
centres of modem Serb cultture, afforded a spiritual link
between the Hapsbui^ Empire and the autonomous
principality* If the Hapsburg Government had
, profited by the experience of 1830, and espoused the
cause of Serbian nationality, it might still have rallied
the ^diok South-Slavonic race tmder its own banner*
The breakdown of the reactionary regime in 1866
o£Ened the oocasion for such a change of policy towards
the Southern Slavs* Some concession to the principle
of nationality was essential if the internal cohesion of
the Monardiy was to be saved : liberalism in this
particular instance would bring positive gain as well,
by setting the salvaged ** Danubian unit ^* upon its new
path towards expansion under the most auspicious
circiUDStances*
Unfortunately, however, reform was baulked by
oompcomise* We have seen that the Ausgleich of 1867
was no reconstruction of the Hapsburg Empire on the
bass of nationality, but simply a deed of partnership
between Germans and Magyars for the continued op-
pression of the rest* It made the Magyar oligarchy a
power in the Monarchy* That was the only new factor
it introduced, and its e£Eect upon the foreign policy
of Attstria-Htmgary as a whole has been even more
disastrotis than the internal race-conflict to which it has
given vent within Hui^ary itself*
178 THE BALKANS
The Magyars were reckless, q;otistic and well-
organised. These qualities gave them an undue
influence in the Dual State, and their geographical
situation made that influence paramount on the South-
Eastem frontier* After 1867 the South-Slavonic
problem, and therewith the fate of the ** Eastward
Trend,'^ passed more and more completely under
Magyar control, at the very time when it was becoming
of extreme importance to the whole Danubian Unit*
The terms of the Ausgleich assigned to the Crown
of St. Stephen almost all the Southern Slavs within
the Hapsbuq; frontier.^ The struggle of 1848-49 had
inspired the Magyars and their Slavonic neighbours
widi mutual fear and resentment, and the memcMry of
it did not promise well for the future of the Hapsbu^
Croats and Serbs, now that they were abandoned to the
Magyars^ mercy.
We have already examined the case of the Serbs in
Hungary: we have now to consider the relations
between the Magyar government and the vice-royalty
of Croatia-Slavonia*
The Magyars secured this province for the ** Crown
of St. Stephen,*' basing their claim upon their mediaeval
suzerainty over it. Such a ** historical argument '' was
of course without value, yet the terms Croatia obtained
seemed generous enough to compensate her for incor-
poration with her lai^^ neig^ibour.
The Croato-Huii^arian Compromise was voted by
the Hungarian parliament and the Croatian diet in
z868. It conceded at once to the Croats and Serbs
beyond the Drave fundamental rights ^^ch the
nationalities in Htmgary itself have been struggling
vainly for half a century to obtain. There was no
> The Dabnatiaos were the czoepctoii.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 179
attempt at Magyarisation, and South-Slavonic was
constituted the official meditun of all administration
within tbe limits of Croatian territory. The adminis-
tration itself was organised in a liberal spirit. In the
spheres of education, justice, and local self-government
Croatia obtained complete Home Rule : defence,
finance, and questions of economics and communications
were made common afTairs of the ** Crown of St.
Stephen,*' but the Croatian Diet was entitled to send
deputies to the parliament at Buda-Pest to discuss and
vote upon these subjects. The deputies had the right
to debate in their native language. Their numbers
were not quite proportional to the population they
represented,^ but on the other hand the Croatian
contribution to the ** Crown of St. Stephen's ** common
exchequer was rated disproportionately low.
Nothing could have been fairer on paper. In practice
the Magyars have taken advantage of their partnership
to eq>loit Croatia systematically in their own economic
m
interest*
The province is important to the M^yars simply
because it offers the only access from Htmgary to the
sea. In the settlement of z868 the Magyar negotiators
succeeded in excluding from the boundaries of Croatia
the port of Fiume, which lies dose to the Austrian
frontier in the extreme Western comer of the ootmtry,
and the town was organised as an ^' autonomous
municipality *' tmder a governor responsible to the
Hungarian ministry. The trunk-railway from Buda-
Pest to Agram and Karlovatz was pushed on over the
Dinaric range, and reached Fiume in 1873.*
'SeeMsq>IIL
z8o THE BALKANS
By the terms of the Cioato-Hungarian ** Com-
promise ** this state-built and state-owned railway was
common property of the ^' Crown of St. Stephen/^ and
the control of it fell within the province not of the
Home Rule government at Agram but of the central
government at Buda-Pest. If the ^^ Compromise ** had
any meaning, the railway administration should have
taken due account of both Croatian and Hungarian
interests, but the fashion in which Buda-Pest inter-
preted its trust revealed the ** Compromise '' as a
fiction*
The Magyars have used their political predominance
in the common parliament to govern the Fiume railway
exclusively to Hungary's economic advantage, and
deliberately to the economic detriment of Croatia*
Freightage-tarifiEs are manipulated so as to favour
through-traffic from the Alf did to Fiume at the expense
of local traffic in Croatia itself,^ and every effort is made
to focus at Buda-Pest all railway connection between
Croatia and the rest of the continent. Where more
direct routes are already in existence, not only tzri&
but time-cables are distorted to induce goods and
passengers to travel to Vienna or Belgrade by way of
the Hungarian capital : where the railways have yet to
be built, the Magyar government does everything in its
power to obstruct their development* While Hungary
itself is covered with a network of lines, the section of
the Fiume railway between Agram and the coast has
never been extended by a sitigle branch, so that Croatia
is deprived of independent communication with her
natural market in Austria on the one hand, and with her
> In 29x1 the goods-tarifif from Eisek on the Drave to Agram
lower than the tanff from the same place to Fiume, though the dtstance
in the former case is only three-fifths as great as in the latter.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS i8i
Sottth-Slavooic neighbours in Dalmatia and Bosnia on
the other*
The Croats could not be expected to submit gladly
to such a system, and the attitude of the M^yars
towards them has been governed solely by the deter*
mination to force it upon them* For this purpose it
was necessary to hold Croatian politics well in hand,
and the settlement of 1868 offered facilities for the
possesses her own autonomous legislature,
but the ** Ban ** or viceroy, the supreme executive
authority, is appointed by the ministry at Buda-Pest*
The Magyar government perceived in this office an
instrument for keeping Croatia to heel, and they found
the right man for the post in Count Khuen-Hedervary«
The Count governed Croatia for twenty years ^ by a
** Tammany ** regime which he worked out almost to
perfection* He paralysed the opposition in the Diet
by fomenting the rivalry between the Croat and Serb
sections of the population, and secured a safe govern-
mental majority over the disorganised nationalist votes
by the Magyar method of electoral corruption*' Official
pressure was not difficult to exert, for the entire political
patronage of the country bebngs to the Ban, but if the
polling turned out against him, Khuen-Hedervary was
always prepared to dissolve the newly-elected diet and
repeat the process till he obtained a house of a more
satisfactory complexion*
Such were the effects of Magyar domination upon die
South-Slavonic communities under the *^ Crown of
St* Stephen '*: meanwhile, M^yar influence had
> i8%-i909. In the Utter year he lent his services to Frands
Jtweph and accepcsd the Hungjanan pceniiersb^)* See above*
■ Even the Diet of z868, which voted the ** Compromise ** with
Himgary, had been ** packed " with safe men by illegitimate means.
i82 THE BALKANS
asserted itself in the relations between the Monarchy
and the Southern Slavs beyond the frontier*
In the summer of 1875 there was a general risix^
of the Christian peasants in Bosnia* The Ottoman
Government failed to suppress it^ and in the following
stmmier the Serbian principality in the Morava valley
intervened in favour of the Bosnian Serbs, and was
followed by Montenegro, a little oommtmity of Serb
mountaineers above Cattaro i^ord which had never
forfeited its independence to Austrian, Venetian or
Turk* In a few months the Ottoman armies crushed
Serbia to earth, and a sympathetic insurrection of the
Bulgar population along the Danube was quelled with
appalling savagery, but the only result of these Turkish
successes was to bring Russia into the field* The
Tsar declared war in Turkey in the spring of 1877 :
before the dose of the year the Tchataldja lines were
forced, and the Russian troops within striking distance
of Constantinople* In March 1878 the Turkish govern-
ment signed the Treaty of San Stephano.
Thus once more salvation had come to the Balkan
Christians from the Muscovite, and the Danubian
Monarchy had missed another opportunity* This
time the fault lay not with the authoritarian principles
of Vienna but with the M^yar chauvinism of Buda-
pest* While Russia was hesitating in 1876, the Monarchy
might have forestalled her by championitig Serbia in
her desperate straits* The Croats and the Hungarian
Serbs were watching with intense anxiety the vicissi-
tudes of their Slavonic brethren's struggle for liberty,
yet so far from being guided by the feelings of such an
important element in the ** Crown of St* Stephen,"
the Magyar government brutally trampled upon them*
Not only were Hungarian subjects rigorously debarred
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 183
from crossu^; the Save to join the Serbian ranks, but
demonstrations of sympathy with the Slavonic cause
were suppressed in various Hungarian towns, while
pro-Turkish demonstrations were officially encouraged
at Buda-Pest.'
By the end of 1877 ^^ Monarchy had alienated from
itself the sympathies of all Slavs, and when Russia
emerged triumphant, it was as profoundly alarmed
about its own future in the Balkans as Great Britain was
about the security of its route to India* At the congress
called at Berlin in the summer of 1878 to revise the
San Stephano Treaty, the two powers acted in co-
operation, and Disraeli assisted Count Andrassy, the
Austro-Hungarian plenipotentiary, to secure his share
of the spoils.
The Coi^;ress gave the Dual Monarchy a mandate
to occupy and administer Bosnia. The mandate was
acted upon immediately, and the military task was
completed before the autumn*
Superficially, the occupation was an unfriendly act
to Turkey, and the Moslem Bosniaks offered a stout
resistance to the Austro-Hungarian army, but the
province was in any case irretrievably lost to the
Ottoman Empire, and the blow was really directed
against South-Slavonic natiotiality*
The history of eighteenth-century "' paternal govern-
ment ** in the Alf61d has curiously repeated itself in
Bosnia during the last generation. Baron Kallay, who
administered the ** Occupied Provinces '" * from i88a
to 1903 on behalf of the Atistrian and Htmgarian govem-
* The leading Mamr politicians were bound by ties of personal
sntitude to the Turkish Government, which had given them asylum
duBDg the daA years after 1849.
*Tbey are accurately described as BosmVHerzegovim^ but '^ Bosnia'*
alone is used in practice to cover the whole.
i84 THE BALKANS
ments/ has produced remarkable results. In striking
contrast to die policy pursued in CtoztisL during the
same period by Magyar statesmanship, the material
prosperity of the country has been conscientiously
fostered. Law and order have been established, roads
and railways have been built, education has been
provided for. On the other hand, the development of
national self-oonsdousness has been uncompromisingly
resisted.
The hostility of the Moslem Bosniaks was quickly
overcome. Left stranded by the ebb of the Turkish
tide, they found their existence threatened once more
by the Orthodox and Catholic majority of their fellow-
Slavs, among whom they had lived a life apart, as
pariahs or taskmasters, for more than seven centuries.
Naturally they turned for protection to the German
and the Magyar, to whom the Christian Slavs were as
alien as to themselves. The Joint Administration, on
its part, espied in this powerful but denationalised
element the very ally it needed, and set itself with
success to win die Bosniaks^ support. Although the
Moslems constitute barely a third of the Bosnian
population,* they were encouraged to regard the country
as their own, and to stimulate their particularism still
further, Kallay even attempted to create the conscious-
ness of a separate ** Bosniak language,^' differentiated
from the standard South-Slavonic idiom of Croat and
Serb by a few insignificant dialectical peculiarities :
' The adfflinistratiQn of Bosnia was assigned to the departsient of
the Joint Ministry for Finance.
' Total population of Bosnia in 1895 . . 1,568,000
South-Slavonic element about
( Orthodox Serbs
Consisting of < Moslem Bosniaks
Catholic Croats
1,554,000
670/x)0 (4X«38%)
550fioo (33-97%)
334*000 (ao.^%)
For their distributiott see Map IIL
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 185
die Serb element in the province, which amounts to
two-fifths of the total population, was correspondingly
<&cotmtenanced.
This deliberate discrimination in treatment between
the various sections of the population has marred the
Administration by giving it an illiberal cast, and in one
important sphere it has hampered the policy of material
improvement* To conciliate the Moslem landowners the
pressing agrarian problem has been indefinitely shelved*
The occupation of Bosnia thus sowed seeds of
dissention between the Serb nationality and the Dual
Monarchy, yet these seeds might still have withered
without bearing fruit. The excellence of the Bosnian
Administration worked potently for stability, and the
step might plausibly have been explained as the final
act in die Danubian Staters geographical evolution*
Ever since the Hapsbtu^ had added Dalmatia as well
as Slavonia to their dominions, the ultimate inoorpora-
tioa of Bosnia had been a geographical necessity*
The province is shaped like a triangular wedge, and its
^>ex presses upwards, perilously dose to the lines of
oooomunication between the centres of industry and
agriculture in the Danube-basin and their ports on
the Adriatic seaboard* The occupation of the triangle
gacve the Monarchy its short base-line for a frontier,
instead of the combined length of the other two sides*
The General Staff might have vindicated it as a defensive
measure oi purely military import*
Unfortunately, however, the Berlin Conference
did not confine its mandate to Bosnia* Serbia and
Montenegro were both granted considerable increases
of territory,^ but their frontiers were carefully held
obtained in addition complete independence from Ottoman
smetainty — ^Montenesio had never submitted to it*
i86 THE BALKANS
asunder* The Ttirkish Government was left in
possession of the Sandjak ^ of Novi-Bazar^ a strip of
mountainous country which ran from South-East to
North-West in the general direction of the Dinaric
Range, and served as a land-bridge between the Dual
Monarchy now in occupation of Bosnia and the Ottoman
Empire still established in the interior of Macedonia
and along the littoral of the .Sgean* To make the
maintenance of this bridge secure, the two powers
concluded a convention, under which the district was
garrisoned by Austro-Htmgarian troops, without pre-
judice to the Ottoman civil administration^
The garrisonix^ of the Sandjak revealed the occupa-
tion of Bosnia as the first step in a new movement
of offence. The ** Trend Eastward *' was to find its
realisation in territorial escpansion to an ^Bgean sea-
board, but instead of proceeding in tmison with South-
Slavonic national aspirations, the Dual Monarchy had
made up its mind to march over the Southern Slavs'
dead bodies*
Ever since 1878 Austro-Hungarian statesmanship has
been paving the way for a fresh advance* During
the Hamidian regime the garrisons in the Sandjak
looked on while the Serb population of the Kossovo
district, a few miles away, was being exterminated by
bands of Moslem Albanians, armed and incited by
the Ottoman Government. Austria-Hungary refused to
interfere : she professed scrupulous respect for Ottoman
sovereignty, yet all the time she was spreading her
propaganda among Ottoman subjects in the immediate
neighbourhood* She established a virtual protectorate
over the Catholic Albanian clans in the hinterland of
Skodra,* a mountainous region between Kossovo and
« " Province/* * Skutari.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 187
the ooast* She kept them supplied with arms, and
txpUAttd their lawless instincts in order to harass
Montenegro, their traditional enemy, and even to
coerce, if necessary, the Turkish government itself*
The Danubian Monarchy had thus leagued itself
with the Southern Slavs' most deadly foes* Over-
shadowing Serbia and Montenegro already on the West
and North, she was remorselessly turning their flanks,
and threatening to surrotmd them on the South and
East as well* Magyar ideals had involved her in a
stru|^ to the death with the principle of nationality
in the Balkans*^ She had thrown in her lot with the
dying Turk, and made herself both his physician and
his executor* The Turk's own death would have set
the natural term to his outworn system of government :
Austria-Hungary showed her intention of perpetuating
it for ever.
The Monarchy had thus committed itself to a very
serious contest* To reach its goal, it must overcome
the opposition of the Balkan nations and the Russian
Empire simtdtaneously. In this undertaking conunon-
sense dictated two guiding principles : the Southern
Slavs must be kept divided,* and Russia must be
** squared ** by an adequate compromise*
* The mandate to occupy Bosnia was the achievement of the Magyar
Andsaasy, plcaq)otentiary at Berlin and Joint Foreign-Minister, and
he was supported whole-heartedly by Cokmian Tisza, leader of the
Magyar Liberal Party and Hungarian premier. It is true that the
apparently anti-Turkish tendency of the coup aroused violent opposi-
tsoo among the rank and file. Magyar public opinion compelled
Aadnmy to retire, and Tisza only foiced the measure throu^ parlia-
ment by plaoring his last card and tendering his resignation. Yet
the two poliadans had shown their statesmanship by anticipating
le import oft
policy revealed itself, Magyar opinion veered round, and Toza and
the luatuier tudgment of the nation itself. As the true import of their
Andraasy were both national heroes again before their deaths.
* At the dose of 2878 they were partitioned between no leas than seven
political regimes* In Dalmatia mey were Austrian citiseas. North of
the Danube they were Hungarian, in Croatia they were autonomous
t88 THE BALKANS
At first the statesmanship of 1878 seemed likely to
be justified by success* The supersession of the San
Stephano Treaty by the diplomats at Berlin went far
to cancel the prestige wfaidi Russia had won by her
military victory, and the new principality of Bulgaria,
which the Powers had grudgingly allowed to come into
existence within reduced limits, did not prove a source
of strength to its Russian creator. Like the Serbs after
1829, ^^ Bulgars found Russian tutels^ a doubtful
blessing, but they displayed far more vigour in shaking
themselves free. In an incredibly short time they
ventured to steer an independent course of their own.
Flouted by Bulgaria, Russia looked to Serbian loyalty
for consolation, but Serbia had been mortally offended
by the erection of a rival Slavonic state in the Balkan
area, and had entered on a new political phase.
The throne of the principality was occupied at this
time by Milan Obrenovitch,^ the most notable statesman
modem Serbia has produced. He saw that Serbia was
not strong enough to achieve her destiny tmaided, and
that to invoke the assistance of greater powers was
merely to offer herself as a pawn in their game. It was
clear that the Berlin settlement would not be upset in a
day, and Milan determined to take advantage of the
inevitable lull for the development of his country's
material prosperity. Geography has made the Morava
valley a natural appendage of the Middle Danubian
Basin. The Danubian Monarchy spreads its bulk
between Serbia and Western Europe, and the little state
could not begin its economic growth unless it had secured
under the Crown of St. Strahen, in Bosnia they were under the joint
protectorate of the Dual Monarchy, in Serbia and Montenegro they
were members of independent national states, in Kosoovo they were still
subject to Turktth miagDvemment.
^ He ascended it in x868.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 189
its big ndg^bour^s good-will. Moved by these con-
skieratioiis, Milan did not hesitate to sacrifice national
ideals and turn his kingdom into a satellite of Austria-
Hungary*
The next ten years witnessed a struggle between the
king supported by the Liberal or ** Progressive *' Party
on the one hand, and the Russophil Radicals on the
other* Milan succeeded in carrying out his programme*
Railways were built and the finances reorganised, in
spite of the opposition aroused by increased taxes
without any immediately visible returns* In 1885 an
opportunity presented itself for striking at Bulgaria,
and jealousy prompted Serbia to seize it* She declared
war only to suffer a severe defeat, and nothing but the
Dual Monarchy's veto prevented the Bulgarian army
from marching upon Belgrade* This intervention
marked die zenith of Austro-Hungarian ascendency
over Serbia,^ yet Milan actually survived the bankruptcy
of his foreign policy* It was not till 1889 that he was
driven to abdicate, and allow Alexander his son to reign
in his stead*
Alexander was a minor, and the Liberal regency found
itself unable to cope with the growing Radical block in
pariiament* In 1893 the young king took the reins into
his own hands, and attempted to govern through a
Radical ministry, but the experiment soon broke down*
Hie Radicals endangered the understanding with the
Dual Monarchy, and wrought havoc with the public
* And abo die lowest ebb of Russtan influefice in the Balkans. At
tke oatbflvak of the war, Ruana had immediately witbdfawn her
fldtury atafif which was engaged in building up the Bulgarian anny.
She hoped that this step would at once conciliate Serbia and t«ich the
wifwaid Bolgais that the^ could not dispense with Russian assistance.
When the Bulgars impioviaed victorious generalship out of their native
ifjomiea, and Serbia applied to die Dual Monarny to save her from
the consequences of defeat Russia was dealt two staggering blows.
100 THE BALKANS
finances: a political catastrophe was imminent, and
the country recalled the only man who could avert it.
Five years after his exile, the old king returned to
Belgrade in triumph* His policy had conquered.
Serbia submitted herself to his guidance, party rancours
cooled down, and the national energy concentrated
itself in economic channels.
King Milan^s success did not fail to produce its effect
upon the Russian Foreign Office. Deserted by two
of her protegtei, Russia found herself left with no friend
in the Balkans but Montenegro, and was forced to
reconcile herself to an abatement of her ambitions.
Russian and Austro - Hungarian interests in the
Balkans were not essentially incompatible. Russia's
objective was the Black Sea Straits : the Danubian
Monarchy coveted an ^Bgean seaboard. There was no
geographical obstacle to the partition of the Balkan
peninsula by the two powers into an Eastern and a
Western sphere,^ and Russia was now prepared to
consider Atistro-Hungarian overtures to this efiFect.
The advent of the next phase in Turkey's dissolution
precipitated a compromise.
The Berlin Congress had stipulated for administrative
reform throughout the territories abandoned to Ottoman
sovereignty in Macedonia,* and the Porte had published
a pretentious scheme of enlightened government, but
the project remained a dead letter, and the Christian
populations at last determined to help themselves. The
situation, however, was complicated by their distmion.
> The idea had already commended itself to Joseph IL just a oeatiiry
before. In 1789 he made an alliance with Cathenne of Ruasta lor the
partition of the Ottoman Empire^ but the Turks defended themselves
stoutly, and the vultures soon diverted their attention to the Pblsh
* An unofficial name employed to cover the three Ottoman vilayets
{** governments ") of Kdssovo, Monastir, and Sakmika.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 191
Maordonia is the meeting-plaoe of Southern«Slav,
Biilgar^ and Greek. In this area the three races are
ioezthcably intermingled^ and their territorial daims
ffltttually incompatible : the bitterness of each against
the other exceeded their common hatred of the Turk.
In 1893 ^ terrible revolutionary propaganda b^;an.
Macedonia became infested by armed bands, equipped
and controlled from the national states immediately
beyond the Ottoman frontier. Their activity wais only
secondarily directed against the Turkish government :
their principal function was to exterminate villages of
alien race in districts damied by their own nationality,
and in this they were more successful than in protecting
their own nationals from a similar fate, for to harbour
a band exposed the village to Turkish reprisals* The
Macedonian peasant had to choose between the scourge
of die Anatolian soldier or of the Balkan brigand*
The crisis developed rapidly from bad to worse, and
in 1897 the two interested powers arrived at an under-
standing with regard to their eventual policy. In
February 1903 this fotmd expression in an ^^ identic
note "" to the Porte. In the summer of the same year
events were hastened by a general insurrection of the
Bulgarian element,^ and its brutal suppression by the
Turkish troops. In the October of the same year the
two Emperors met at Miirs^steg, and their Foreign
Ministries elaborated a concrete programme, which
they compelled the Porte to accept. The civil adminis-
tration of Macedonia was placed tmder the supervision
of Russian and Austro-Hungarian commissioners, and
the gendarmerie service was organised in local zones of
inspection, which were severally assigned to all the Great
Powers.
' Which constitutes the great majority of the Macedonian population.
G
192 THE BALKANS
The Murzsteg Programme seemed to have started
the Dual Monarchy upon the last stage of its advance
towards Salonika without committing it to the dreaded
conflict with Russia^ In 1904 Russia was diverted
from the Balkans by her war in the Far East, and its
disastrous close in the following year gave Austro-
Hungarian statesmen cause to congratulate themselves*
Apparently the *' Eastward Trend ** had an absolutely
dear field before it : their good fortune had exceeded
their expectations*
At the very moment, however, when Russia retired
from the lists, South-Slavonic natiotiality was coming of
age, and preparing to champion its own cause.
In 1900 Alexander of Serbia made an unfortunate
marriage, and broke away from his father's influence.
His action was bitterly resented by the country, MOan
died before he cotdd recover his authority, and his loss
increased the general misgivii^. A conspiracy was
formed among the officers of the army, and in 1903 King
Alexander and Queen Draga were murdered in their
palace under the most brutal circumstances.
This atrocity did not strike the Austro-Hungarian
Foreign Ministry as important at the time,^ but Austro-
German and Magyar hatred has battened upon it during
the struggle between the Dual Monarchy and Serbia
which has supervened. In the October of 1908 the
writer happened to be dining in an Oxford college where
a distinguished Magyar was a guest. He was an owner
of vineyards in the Tokay district, a major of Honved *
cavalry, and a professor of mathematics into the bargain,
in fine, he was a typical representative of the cultured
la-Htsngary, Riasia, and Montenegro weie the only foreign
states which did not temponuily withdraw their diplomatic representa-
tives from Belgrade as a protest,
■ *• Yeomanry."
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 193
Whig oligarchy. The Balkan War had jtist broken out,
and the name of Serbia was mentioned in the conversa-
tion, when suddenly the table was startled by an
exclamation : ** The Serbs I Liarsand thieves ! They
killed their king and queen with bayonets. Thieves
and liaxsT" During the hush which followed, a
graduate of the college, who was by birth a Galidan
Jew, was heard remarking aside that ** in our part of the
world you can always guess a man's nationality by the
people he abuses/'
The conunent hit the mark. The hate was primary
in the professor's mind, his jtistification of it an after-
thought. In arriving at his estimate of the Serbs'
national character, he had never consulted his reason :
had he done so, it would have shown him the absurdity
of judging a yotmg nation by the scandals in its high
places. The history of Serbia since 1878 is not to be
divined in the intrigues of a handful of politicians at
Belgrade, but in the industry of the peasants, who have
been pturging from the Morava-basin the traces of
Turkish misrule. The success with which they have
overcome their initial handicap, and brought their
country into line with more fortunate parts of Europe,
is sufficient to vindicate their capacity for civilisation.
When Alexander was murdered, his father's economic
policy was already bearing fruit* Serbia had developed
her agrarian resources to the point of producing an
annual surplus : she was now in a position to enter the
field of international oonunerce. Her ziatural market
was the industrial world of Central Europe, and the
direct line for the export of her produce accordingly lay
through the Danubian Monarchy. So long, however,
as she monopolised all Serbia's economic outlets,
Austria-Htmgary ootdd impose on Serbian exports
194 THE BALKANS
vAisitcvtt prices she chose : economic independence
could only be achieved by opening up an alternative
route* Alexander Obrenovitch was succeeded on the
throne of Serbia by Peter Karageorgevitch, the heir of a
rival dynasty, and the first important act of the new reign
. was the negotiation in 1906 of a tariff-convention with
Bulgaria, which promised Serbia access on reasonable
terms to a port on the Black Sea*
This sudden change in the relations of the two
principalities caused considerable consternation at
Vienna and Buda-Pest. Not only did it threaten to
relieve Serbia from her economic thraldom to the Dual
Monarchy : it portended a political entente between the
rival Slavonic groups in the Balkan Peninsula* More
ominous still, it coincided with a similar movement
among the South-Slavonic citizens of the Monarchy
itself*
When Khuen-Hedervary resigned the Croatian vice-
regency in 1903, he left no competent successor behind
him, and the political life of Croatia began to revive*
The prolonged parliamentary crisis at Buda-Pest, which
followed the overthrow of the Magyar Liberal Party,
produced its echo South of the Drave* In the Autunm
of X905, a conference of Croat deputies from the
Croatian Diet and the Austrian Reichsrath was held at
Fiume.^ A resolution was adopted, expressing sym-
pathy with the Magyar Coalition in its struggle against
the Cro¥m, but demanding that the liberties for which
the Coalition professed to be fighting should be extended
to Croatia as well : the Compromise of z868 was to be
observed in spirit as well as in letter, and constitutional
^ The initiative came from the Croat leaders in Dahnatia, who as
citizens of Austria had been able to develop a more untiammeled
political activity than their less fortunate brethren under the *' Crown
of St* Stephen*
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 195
autonomy to be made a reality* The union ^ of Croatia
and Dalmatia was to be achieved under the *' Crown of
St. Stephen/'
Before the Conference dissolved, an executive
committee was appointed to give effect to its intentions*
They at once opened negotiations with the Sefb
members of the Croatian Diet** Less than a fort-
night later a Serb congress met at Zara, endorsed
the ** Resolution of Fiume/' and proclaimed the need
for political co-operation between the Croat and Serb
elements in the Dual Monarchy* During the winter
the two groups actually combined to conduct a vigorous
political campaign, and in the spring of 1906 the same
elections that brought the Magyar Coalition into office
at Buda-Pest, returned to the Diet at Agr^m a formidable
block representative of the new coalition between Serbs
and Croats*
Within the Monarchy as well as outside it^ the
Southern Slavs were thus beginning to close their
ranks* Austro-Hungarian statesmanship had counted
on its ability to play off against one another the several
victims of its ** Eastward Trend ** : the events of X906
threatened it with the forfeiture of its most effective
weapon, when the last and most hazardous step in the
advance was still to take* A strong personality was
required at the Joint Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and
the appointment of Baron Aerenthal followed before
the end of this critical year*
Aerenthal was fully alive to the danger : he resolved
to forestall it by a determined offensive* Russia was
still paralysed by her disaster in the Far East : the
'Or the '^ reunion/' as Croat nationalists prefer to txprtss it,harkixi«
back to the ** Triune Kingdom " of Dalmatia-Croatia-Slavonia which
floansbed for its brief moment in the eleventh century a J>.
* About one quarter of the total population of Croatia is Scib.
196 THE BALKANS
Danubian Monarchy must seize this opportunity to
realise its ambitions, or else abandon them for ever*
Aerenthal deliberately embarked upon the death*
struggle with the Soudiem Slavs*
The first bout in the conflict did not result in his
favour* Dtuing 1907 he retaliated upon Serbia for her
effort towards economic liberty by waging a remorseless
tariff-war against her.^ The Serbian peasantry suffered
severely, but they showed unexpected obstinacy:
instead of coming to terms, they developed new outlets
and markets with such enterprise that Aerenthal had
to abandon his campaign as a failure*
Next year, however, he returned to the diarge* In
January 1908 he concluded a convention with the
Ottoman Government for the construction of a railway
through the Sandjak of Novibazar, which was to link
the Austro-Hungarian railway system in Bosnia with
the Turkish railhead at Mitrovitza* His object was to
** side-track ** Serbia by diverting to this new route the
through-traffic between Central Europe and the ^Bgean
littoral, which had utilised hitherto the line through
Belgrade and up the Morava valley to Salonika** He
paid dearly for this move, for it drew Russia once more
into the Balkan arena*
Russian opinion regarded the railway scheme as a
direct violation of the Miirzsteg agreement : it por-
tended the consummation of the Danubian rival's
"' Eastward Trend*'^ The Government shook off its
lethargy, and determined upon a counter-stroke* In
^ Nicknamed the ^Pig War*' in Austria-Hungary, swine being
Serbia's chief article of export.
*The Mitiovitza line traverses the Kossovo district and joins the
Salonika Railway at Uskub* Like the Bosnian system'and the piopoaed
connecting link, it is narrow-gauge, while the Belgrade-Uskub-SaKuuka
Railway h built on the rq^ular CSmtinental standard. See Map III.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 197
June 1908 the Tsar entertained King Edward VIL at
Reval, and Great Britain and Rtissia announced in
oonjtinction a new and drastic scheme of Macedonian
refonn*^
The effect was momentous* A ** Young Turk **
committee had been planning for years the overthrow
of Abd-^-hamid's absolute government* Educated by
exile in Western Europe, they had imbibed its national
chauvinism as well as its liberal ideals* The ** Reval
Ptogramme'' convinced them that Turkey would
forfeit the sovereignty over her European territories
altogether, unless she could accomplish immediate
reform from within* They resolved to risk everything
to save the integrity of the Empire* The revolution
was started among the troops in Macedonia before the
next month was out, and in a few days Turkey was
converted into a constitutional state*
The dtiel between Aerenthal and Serbia had thus set
all the Balkans and the Nearer East in commotion before
the autumn of 1908* Meanwhile, the South-Slavonic
problem had rapidly been assuming more serious pro-
portions within the borders of the Dual Monarchy*
The Spring of 1907 witnessed the inevitable
breach between the Serbo-Croat G>alition Party and
the Ms^;yar Coalition Ministry* In a biU submitted
by Francis Kossuth * to the parliament at Buda-Pest,
Magyar was declared the sole official language for the
railway-system not merely of Hungary as heretofore,
but of all territories included under the ** Crown of St*
Stephen*'' This was a dear contravention of the
Compromise of 1868, by which the South-Slavonic
* Qimmra fear of Gennany had led these two |K»wen to oompQW th^
ootrtandtiis dixEueiiccs the year befdce*
* The aoa of Lotttt.
198 THE BALKANS
•
tongue had been guaranteed official status within the
limits of Croatia* In proposing it the Magyar Radicals
had shown their hand* Their Liberal predecessors
had confined the policy of Magyarisation to Hungary :
this bill was an attempt to extend it to Croatia*
The Serbo-Croat deputies in the parliament at Buda-
pest at once resorted to obstruction* They were
defeated by a tactical manoeuvre and the bill became law,
but the struggle was only continued the more fiercely
at Agram* At the beginning of 1908 the Magyar
government dismissed the ** Ban ** then in office as
unequal to the situation, and specially appointed Baron
Paul Rauch to superintend as viceroy the impending
elections in Croatia ; yet Rauch, though he strentiously
applied Khuen-Hedervary^s methods, did not obtain
from them his gifted predecessor's results* The
Croato-Serb coalition secured an absolute majority in
the new Diet, and all that Rauch could do was to
prorogue the session for an indefinite period, and govern
in defiance of the constitution*
Durixig the months, therefore, that followed the
Turkish revolution, Aerenthal found all sections of the
South-Slavonic race in a dangerous state of agitation*
Being a man of courageous temper, he resolved to crush
the spirit of Serb and Croat alike by an overwhelmii^
blow* In October 1908 he repudiated the sovereignty
of the Porte over Bosnia, and declared the annescation
of the ** Occupied Provinces '^ to the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy*^
This act at once provoked a European crisis, but
Aerenthal showed himself not unequal to the occasion*
^The com was effected in coUusioii with Bulgaria, which
simultaneotisly denounced Ottoman suzerainty and proclaimed the
'' annexation '' (in a similar sense) of Eastern Rumelia.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 199
By January 1909 he had compounded with the ** Young
Turk"" government* Serbia and Montenegro^ whose
interests were much more vital than Turkey's in Bosnia,
had mobilised and threatened war, but this was provided
for in Aerenthal's programme* He met it by a vigorous
counter-mobilisation along the Save and the Drina,
and uncompromisingly rejected all claims to territorial,
economic or moral compensation* When Russia took
steps in support of the two Balkan principalities, he
appealed with success to the Monarchy's German ally,
h the last week of March Berlin addressed a virtual
ukimattun to Petersburg, the Russian protest against
the Annexation was withdrawn, and Serbia composed
a paUnodia in the form of a note to the Austro-Htmgarian
foreign office, in which she renotmoed all stake in the
destinies of Bosnia*
Aerenthal had carried his manoeuvre throt^, but it
was a Pyrrhic victory* G>mmon adversity had linked
Serbia fast to Montenegro, and her latent loyalty to
Russia was re-kindled by the championship she had
received from the diplomacy of Petersburg* Russia
on her part was stirred to the depths by the humiliation
she had endtired*^ The Far Eastern disaster and the
revolutionary convulsion which followed it had left her
still too greatly diso]^;anised to fight ; but she was well
on the way towards recovery, and she needed but this
stimulus to dispel her paralysis altogether* Deter^
mined to be ready ** next time,^^ she devoted herself
to preparations* The South-Slavonic question became
onoe more the focus of her foreign policy, and was
promoted thereby to be the crucial issue between the
* TbK Kaaer's speech in which he imaged himself as ** ■»a«Ht<ig
boide his ally in shining armour'* rankled especially deep in the
RdBian iHinn.
aoo THE BALKANS
two camps into which the European powers were divided.
Aerenthal had unchained forces beyond his control*
He had asserted his will in a problem of vital importance
to the Danubian Monarchy, but he had done so at the
price of transferring the initiative for the future to the
dominant partner in the Central-European alliance.
The aftermath of the crisis within the Monarchy
itself was hardly less embarrassing* Baron Rauch
had rid himself of the Croatian Diet for the moment :
he was resolved to ruin the Croato-Serb Coalition before
he faced it again* During the early summer of 1908
his official press worked up a scare of ** Pan-Serb **
conspiracy ; in July the first arrest was made on the
charge of High Treason, and before the end of January
X909 no less than fifty-eight Serb citizens of Croatia,
all people of obscure station, were in prison pending
their trial on this account. The judicial proceedings at
Agram did not open till March, when the external crisis
was approaching its dttente, and the attention of Europe
was concentrated upon them before they dragged to
their belated close in October* Thirty-one of the
victims were sentenced to terms of imprisonment
varying from twelve to five years, but Rauch had failed
in his real objective : all attempts to implicate the
Coalition members of the Croatian Diet had broken
down, and the party was able to follow up this negative
success by a triumph of a more startling character.
During the same month of March in which the
Bosnian crisis ended and the Agram trial began, the
Neae Freie Presse newspaper had published at Vienna
an article on the relations of the Dual Monarchy to
the South-Slavonic problem by an eminent Austrian
historian. Dr. Friedjung. This article was written in
an authoritative tone : it specifically^charged the Serbo-
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS Toi
Qoat Coalition with being the exponents and tools of
agencies in Belgrade, and supported its assertions by
quotations from documents* Some of the documents
purported to be official correspondence of the Serbian
Foreign Office, others were minutes of a semi-official
revolutionary society, but Dr« Friedjung, when chal-
lenged, refused to reveal their provenance, and the
Coalition deputies accordingly entered a libel action
against him at Vienna*
The hearing of this case only came on in December
1909, after the treason trial was over, but this time the
proceedings lasted no longer than a fortnight* The
trial at Agram had cast a lurid light upon the methods
of espionage employed by the Austro-Htmgarian
Administration in Bosnia, Croatia, and Dalmatia : now
at Vienna Dr* Friedjung^s documents were revealed
as forgeries concocted within the walls of the Austro-
Hungarian legation at Belgrade, oommimicated to
Friedjung as genuine by the Joint Foreign Office, and
utilised by him in all good faith*
The action was hastily stopped by a compromise,
before these results could be registered in the verdict
of the court, but the evidence of the witnesses had
created an immense sensation* Dr« Spalaikovitch,
the incriminated Serbian official, put in an appearance
and brilliantly vindicated himself and his country :
The Tcfaech savant Professor Masaryk of Prag, who
counted among his pupils men of the rising generation
in all the Slavonic countries of the Danubian Monarchy
and the Balkans, proved himself still more formidable*
Implicated as a witness in the trial, he refused to let
the matter drop* He was a member of the Austrian
Reichsrath, and when the Delegations next met in
November 1909, he was elected as one of the Austrian
ao2 THE BALKANS
representatives. This gave him an opportunity for a
direct pas5^;e of arms with the Joint Foreign Minister :
Aerenthal hardly attempted a defence, and Masaryk
proceeded remorselessly with his interpellations till he
had pieced together and exposed the whole official
conspiracy. Aerenthal aspired to be the " Austrian
Bismardc " without possessing the capacity of his
Prussian ensample. The exposure was as Hamning
as that of the " Ems Telegram," and it had overtaken
him with disconcerting speed.
Thus ended the first bout in the conflict : before the
next began Baron Aerenthal had been removed from the
scene, but during five short years of office ^ he had fixed
the lines on which it should be fought to its conclusion.
Baron Rauch did not survive the Friedjung incident :
early in 1910 he was superseded, and the Croatian Diet
was convened once more. The respite, however, was
brief. The ideals of the Serbo-Croat Coalition and of
M^Cyar nationalism were not compatible with one
another. So long as Magyar ministries could control
the politics of Croatia, it was possible to observe in
outward form the Compromise of 1868 : now that the
majority in the Diet was possessed by a party truly
representative of the Croatian people, consperation
between the parliaments at J^ram and Buda-Pest had
become impracticable, and the Compromise inevitably
broke down. A fresh deadlock led once more to the
suspension of constitutional govenmient in Croatia in
the spring of 1912, and almost immediately afterwards
the Serb Chtirch in the Hapsbuig dominions was
deprived of its charter, i^ch had been consistently
respected since its original grant in 1691.
KtirenMnl
1
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 303
At tlie height of this intemal crisis^ the Monarchy
1RB suddenly £aoed by that external event which its
ittafesmen had dreaded beyond all others* During
the same sununer the four independent states in the
Balkans,^ upon whose rivaby Austro-Hungarian policy
depended, contrived to effect an understanding, and
in September 191a they declared war upon Turkey
sifflultaneously** Within two months the Turkish
armies were driven off the field, the Balkan allies were
assaulting the Chataldja and Gallipoli lines, which
cover the Black Sea Straits, and only three fortresses
sdll held out further West* Negotiations opened at
London during a winter armistice proved abortive, but
diey were renewed after the fall <^ all three fortresses
in the spring* By the resultant treaty the League
oorporately acquired from Tturkey all her European
territories beyond a line drawn from Ainos on the
£gean to Midia on the Blade Sea«'
Serbia had joined the League for two objects. The
first was to recover her *' irredenta ** in Kossovo, before
it was overtaken by the same fate as Bosnia : the second
was to obtain direct access to the Adriatic*
A country without a seaboard is economically at the
mercy of its neighbours. Serbia had experienced this
in X907, when the Danubian Monarchy had closed
agamst her trade the land-route to Western Europe.
The nearest seaboard to the Morava-basin is die
' Serbia, Montcncgio, Bulgam and Gfceoe.
'Tbeyncie givat tfaetr opportunity by the Turoo-Italian War, which
began m the atftumn of 291 land dragged on for a y«ar. The signature
of peace by the Turkish and Italian plenqntentiarics at Latisanne and
the dtrlararion of war by the Balkan Lngue were pncticaUY simul-
ffntnand of ^
and undl that moment the Italian fleet's command of the sea
kxked up in Tnpoh some of Turlrey's most serviceable troops, and
paialyaed commimtcatinns between the Turkish military estabhshment
a Marrrionia and its Anatolian reservoirs of men and supplies.
'See Map IV.
'k"
ao4 THE BALKANS
Dalmatian coast, and nationality as well as geography
supports Serbia's title to an outlet in this direction, since
the whoit territory that intervenes between Belgrade
and Spalato ^ is occupied by a homogeneous South-
Slavonic population. Yet here, K>o, Serbia's ubiquitous
neighbour blocked the way : the crisis of 1908 had
shown that Austria-Hungary was established just as
permanently West of the Dnna as North of the Save,
and that Serbia's dream of oonoessioos in this quarter
had been Utopian.
A casual glance at the map suggests that, after the
annexation of the Kossovo-district, Serbia might have
engineered a railway across it to the Montenegrin port
of Antivari, and thus obtained an outlet only sU^tly
further K> the South ; but with a map that represents
the relief (tf the land, the idea will be dispelled by closer
examination. Antivari possesses a tolerable harbour
but an impassable hinterland. The massif of the
" Black Afeuntain " rises immediately behind it, and
the very physical qualities that luve sa£q;uarded
Montenegro's liberty have denied her the possibility
of railway development. The Dinaric barrier between
■ Spalato lies appiomnattly at the mid-point of die Soutb-Sbvooic
coan, half way bctWccD Piume on the one bond and ttw mouth of Ac
Boyana Rivet on die odiei. It is destined by geography to be die
principal pott of die Soutb-Slavonic area, but at present ita c^iacidei
are neutnUwd by the lack of railway connections with its binteriand
(see Mq> IIL). The Boonian Railway hai not yet opened its way to
any port further up the coast than Metkovitdi on the estuary of the
Narenta, though a branch diverges from that point in the opposite
direction to Ragtaa, and continues still further South-Bast as tar as
Caitelnuovo, at the entrance of Cattaro fiord. To link ifae Serbian
railway system with these actual or potential ports on the Dalmatian
QUMt, bttle furdier railway construction is required. A Serbian line
aaceods the valley of the Western Morava and ita tributary, the Tsetinya,
as fax West as XTpat : a branch of die Bosnian Raitwav starts ftoin
SarayevD, crosses the Drina at Vishegrad, and runs li^t up to iIm
Serbian frontier at Vardiahtc. The distance between the two rail-
heads is less than twenty-five miles (see Map III.).
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 205
the Danube-basin and the sea is at no point more
di£Bcult to surmount*
Serbia was thus driven to look further South* As
soon as the Turkish resistance in Northern Macedonia
had been overcome, she despatched a coltunn by forced
maidies across the Albanian mountains, and occupied a
stretch of the Turkish coast-line extending from Alessao
at die mouth of the Drin as far Southward as the port
of Durazso«
At this point the Dual Monarchy intervened* Count
Berchtold, who had succeeded Baron Aerenthal at the
Joint Ministry for Foreign AfEairs, set his veto upon the
establishment of Serbian sovereignty at any point on
the Adriatic coast* Once more the Monarchy had to
mobilise her troops in support of her diplomacy, and
this time against Russia on the Galidan frontier, yet
by Sir Edward Grey^s efforts the catastrophe was once
more averted, and Serbia yielded to Berchtold's demand*
Berchtold^s action was not defensible* He made play
with the Austro-Hungarian protectorate over the North-
Albanian dans, and posed as the champion of a small
nationality against its unscrupulous neighbour, yet in
a precisely similar case the Magyars had avowedly
been sacrificing the interests of the Southern Slavs in
Croatia to their own need for railway conuntmication
with the sea* The hypocrisy of Berchtold's plea was
enhanced by the fact that Serbia, tmlike Hungary, could
have found a seaboard in Dalmatia without doing any
violence at all to the national principle, had not her way
been barred by the Dual Monarchy itself*
Even the occasion for this stroke seemed ill-chosen.
Feeling in Croatia and Bosnia was abeady inflamed
against the government by the internal situation : the
Serbian sucoeflses had further agitated it by a wave of
ao6 THE BALKANS
sjraqiatbetic enthusiasm, and the morale of Serbia
herself was very difierent in the spring of 1913 from
what it had been in the Spring of 1909. Berchtold's
diplomacy, however, had an ulterior object. He
divined that Serbia, now entirely debarred from the
Adriatic, would insist on obtainii^ an j^ean outlet
in compensation. This would brit^ her into coUiKon
with Bulgarian claims in Macedonia, the Balkan allies
would quarrel over the division of their Turkish spoil,
their formidable harmony would be destroyed, and after
they had exhausted one another by an inttraedne war,
the Monarchy's path towards Salonika would once more
be open.
In starting this train of events, Berchtold overreached
himself. Serbia duly enlarged her Macedonian claims,
the tension between the Balkan allies increased, and
towards the end of June 19x3 Bulgaria opened the
Second Balkan War by a treacherous night-attack upon
the Serbian outposts sixmg the line of the Vardar.
Yet the result of this secondary contest was an even
greater surimse than the collapse of the Turks. The
Greek and Seri)ian armies almost immediately assumed
the ofEensive, and cleared Macedonia of Bulgarian troops ;
Roumania declared war, and invaded Bulgaria from the
opposite quarter : hardly more than a month had
passed before the Bulgarian resistance was completely
broken. The Treaty of Bukarcst, which defined the
terms of the re-settlement, was a proclamation of
Berchtold's failure.
Serbia's gains were fai greater than they would have
been if the Treaty of London had remained in force,
and the four allies had settled their claims by peaceful
I compromise. The Dual Monarchy's discom^ture was
L pn^icionattly aggravated. Jn the autumn of 19(3
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 207
die ** Eastwatd Trend ** had indeed lost all prospect of
realisation*
(i*) In the first place the gateway through the Sandjak
had been walled up, and a continuous belt of Serbian
and Montenegrin territory now extended all the way
bom Belgrade to Antivari* This was a legacy from the
Bosnian coap of 1908. Part of Aerenthal^s indemnity
to the Ottoman Government had been the withdrawal
of the Austro-Hungarian garrisons from this district,
and the bargain had proved a bad one for both parties.
In e£Eect the Monarchy made way not for Turkey but
for her Balkan heirs, and after brief service as a sop to
** Young Turkish " pride, the Sandjak went to swell the
booty of Serbia and Montenegro*
(ii.) In the second place Serbia had triumphantly
adiieved her economic independence. The elimination
of Bulgaria left Serbia and Greece in joint possession
of the Salonika Railway, and while Greece incorporated
the Southernmost section of the line, as well as its
terminal port, within her political frontier, Serbia
retained complete equality with her in the economic
utilisation of both. She had thus secured an immedi-
ately available oudet to the sea without expenditure of
time or capital, whereas the task of pacifying Northern
Albania and constructing a new railway throt^ its
mountains from the Morava-valley to Duraszo would
have absorbed her energy for years. She had reason
to diank G>unt Berchtold for saving her from a false
step I
(fii.) Worse still, Serbia and Mcmtenegro had both
almost doubled their population and their territorial
extent. When they had assimilated these new tissues,
and had shaken off all traces of their two wars except
die prestige of rictoty, they wouU develop into a
I
ao8 THE BALKANS
fennidabk miUtary power. They would be strcmg in
dmnsehres, and, wotst of all, tliey would be strcmg in
tbeir friends.
Berchtold's diplomacy had exorcised the first Balkan
Confederacy only to conjure up a more dangerous
entente in its place. The alliance between Serbia and
Bu^aria was essentially directed against Turkey : once
the Turks were driven behind the Qutaldja lines, its
positive stimulus would in any case have vanished.
Roiunania, however, was as disLiterested in respect of
Turkey as Bulgaria was towards the national problems
of the Middle Danube-basin, and her new understand-
ing with Serbia could have but one meaning. Just
as Serbia had made common cause with Bulgaria to
liberate the Slav populations under Ottoman rule, so
she would fight shoulder to shoulder with Roumania
to wrench away from the Hapsbu^ complezus the
" irredenta " coveted by each <^ them in this quarter.
The cherished dream of a " Trend Eastward " was
foding away, and the foreboding of a "Westward
Trend " at the Monarchy's e:qiense was beginning to
take its place.
Thus ended the second bout in the conflict between
the Dual Monarchy and the South Slavonic nationality.
Could the Monarchy retrieve its position before the
drama was played out i Yes, if the face of Europe were
changed by a trial of strength between the opposing
camps into which the European Powers were divided.
If the central group triumphed, the Danubian partner
could snatdi success out of failure, and lay hands upon
Salonika after all.^
Would Germany, the dominant member in the
partnership, be willing to stake her all upon this issue i
I Sec die Britiih Vhiu Paper, No. 8a.
\
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 209
Yes agaisi, for while the events of 1908-9 had akeady
endowed the South-Slavonic problem with international
stgnificance, the solution of the Moroccan question after
the crisis of 19x1 had promoted it to be the supreme
test of the '' Balance of Power/'
These considerations counselled the Joint Minister
for Foreign AfEairs to precipitate a dinouement at the
first opportunity, and the murder of the Archduke
Francis Ferdinand at Sarayevo in Jtme 19x4 presented
him with the initiative.
The crime was perpetrated by a South-Slavonic
subject of the Monarchy, a Bosnian Serb. It is idle
to brand a whole race with an individual's misdeed :
Qrstni's attempt to assassinate Napoleon IIL in X858
did not stain the honour of the Italian people, still less
did Napoleon tax the Sardinian Government with
responsibility for the act of a man who was not a
Sardinian subject. There is no shadow of proof that
King Peter's ministers were implicated in the present
a£Eaar any more than Cavour was in the other : the facts
can only be established when the trial of the murderers
has run its course, yet before the proceedings were
opened at Sarayevo, Count Berchtold had exploited the
occasion to force war upon Serbia against her will.
German and Magyar apologists represent this un-
provoked attack as a '^punitive expedition.'' They
remind us that when the A^hans massacred Sir Lows
Cavagnari and his suite at Kabul, Lord Roberts retraced
his steps and exacted a bloody vengeance : ** Suppose,"
they argue, ** that the Viceroy of India or the Prince of
Wales were sniped at his camp-fire during a tour along
tbt North-West Frontier, you would carry fire and
sword through the hills without remorse."
We will accept the comparison, if we may carry it to
aio THE BALKANS
a sfustained conclusion. If we suppose so ifiudi, we
must likewise suppose that the inhabitants of Ireland
and the Scottish Highlands happen themselves to be
Afghans in race, that the Welsh and the Cornishmen,
if they are not actually Afghans too, speak some dosety
allied Persian dialect, and that Afghan is recognised
as an official language in the British Navy :^ add to this
an inflexible system of universal conscription, and we
shall be able to picture our A^hans from Ireland and
Scotland being mobilised in company with their
English-speaking neighbours and marched across the
Indian frontier to slay their ** barbarous '' brethren who
had sniped an English grandee.*
Whatever the German and the Magyar may feel about
their onslaught upon Serbia, for their South-Slavonic
fellow-dtizens it is compulsory civil war.
This abominable culmination of the ^ Dual System '*
is the Third Act in the South Slavonic drama, but the
plot has broadened out. This time we are participating
in the action ourselves, and playing for life and deadi*
If we and our allies succeed in dominating the finakf
in what guise will the original actors emerge from their
protracted ordeal i
If the Dual Monarchy suffers defeat in the present
struggle, its South-Slavonic subjects will find themselves
for the first time at liberty to consult their own interests,
instead of being exploited in the selfish interest of other
nationalities. We can be sure beforehand of their
* Every officer in the Aastro-Htmgar&n Navy is required to show
profidency in the Sooth-Slavomc tongue^ because the crews are drawn
ahnost entirely from the Croat population (tf Dalmatia and Istxia,
and are Mt to understand nothing but their native language, beyond
the bare Italian words cf comffland.
* To make our comparison exact, we must imagine that the Aijghan
who fired the dastardly shot proved to hail from Ireland.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS an
cfaoioe. Dalmatian Croatia, and Bosnia will break
away from the toils of Austria-Hungary, and form
some kind of union with Serbia and Montenegro* The
European fraternity will be enriched by a new national
state*
What political organisation will the South-Slavonic
nation adopts Will the provinces mei^e themselves
into a centralised kingdom, like the states of the Italian
peninsula half a century ago, or will they preserve their
individuality and content themselves widi federation,
Kke the Swiss cantons or the U*S*A* i
The Italian precedent might siiggest the former
alternative. In Italy there was the same utter lack
of a common historiod backgrotmd,^ accentuated in this
case by the marvellous evolution of local politics and
culture, yet here the mirade was achieved* Florence
and Venice gladly humbled themselves to exalt their
common country : why should not Agram and Uskub
do likewise <
If the Southern Slavs fall short of their Italian fore-
ronners, we shall find the reason in two differences of
circumstanoe.
The contrast between Sicily and Lombardy in
x86o was striking enough, yet Italy had been spared
the worst degree of spiritual disunion* The Turk
has never set his mark upon half her territories* The
disparity between Milan and Palermo was as nothing
compared to the gulf between Agram, whidi has never
submitted to the Ottoman conqueror, and Uskub,
lA^A ejected him hardly more than two years ago*
■ The Roman Emptre was the first and last political organism that
had united all Italy before 2870^ and the Empire was not a specifically
Iialtai institution* Like the Roman Church it was a common possession
of Wcslem Europe, and its tradition persisted more strongly in Germany
than Sotttfi of tfie Alps*
asa THE BALKANS
This gulf will take many years to brieve, and here again
drcumstances have ptaod the Southern Slavs at a
disadvantage : they have been compelled to begin the
work of construction from the wroi^ end.
In Italy the initiative came from the most advanced
community in the country. Starting horn Piedmont on
the borders of France the movement proceeded methodi-
cally towards the East and South : Lombardy, Emilia,
and Tuscany were consolidated into a national state
before Garibaldi sailed for Sicily with his Thousand.
If Piedmont had shared tht fate of Venetia and
Lombardy, and had been assigned to Austria at the
settlement of 1814, the course of events would have
been very different. By i860 the North would have
been consolidated not as an independent kingdom but
as a complex of provinces jumbled together in the
Hapsburg collection. Italian Nationalism would have
been forced to abandon Tuscany and Romagna, and
would have found no standing-ground North of the
Marches. If at this stage the Pope had identified him-
self with the Risorgimento, and had incorporated the
South in his dominions, as Serbia incorporated Mace-
donia after her Balkan victories, he might have preached
a crusade against Austria and liberated all the Notth
from her yoke with the assistance of her European rivals,
yet when the oppressor had been driven beyond the
Alps, his highly-dvilised victims and their Papal
clumpion wotUd have been left in an embarrassing
position. The Pope would have become the hero of
the North, but the clerical ideals whidi had inspired his
victorious armies would not have commended them-
selves to Italians the other side of the Apetmincs.
The Northerners released from Austrian " strong
government " would have hesitated to accept a clerical
parliamentarianism in its place.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 3x3
This fantastic analogy may serve to indicate the
attitude of patriotic Croats towards the '' Orthodox *'
nationalism of the Morava-prindpality* When Serbia
prostrated the Turkish and Bulgarian armies in two
successive campaigns^ her triumph reacted upon the
South-Slavonic provinces of the Dtial Monarchy. The
Serbs of Hungary and Croatia turned their eyes in
earnest towards Belgrade, and the Croats took pride in
their kinship with the victors* This spiritual exalta-
tion brought the South-Slavonic nation to setf-oon-
sdousness, but we mtist guard against over-estimatixig
its effect. The spell of the Hapsbtirg is broken, and
Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia are ready to transfer their
aUegianoe to the Karageoi^evitch, yet they will not do
so at the sacrifice of their ** historiod sentiment/'
We have noted the strength of tradition in this part
of Europe. When Croatia and Dalmatia are set free,
their first impulse will be to restore the ** Triune
Kingdom '^ ^ as it existed in the eleventh century A J>.,
and they will insist on entering the South-Slavonic
Union on this basis. The national state will thus take
shape as a federation of at least two members.
in Bosnia the Serb element predominates over the
two others, and Serbia will doubtless incorporate the
whole cotmtry. The Bosnian problem involved her in
her struggle for life and death, and the possession of
the province is the stake of victory : as the protagonist
in the national cause, Serbia is worthy of her reward.
Whether the federation will contain more than two
members depends upon the choice of Montenegro.
No South-Slavonic commtmity cherishes so glorious a
tradition as she, but her history is bound up with the
national adversity. She remained a virgin fortress of
* Croatia-:
314 THE BALKANS
liberty when all her brethren had succumbed to alien
masters : when they are hve once more» her isolation
will have lost it significance, and if she clings to her
particuUhsm, she will be holding her friends at arm's>
length instead of her foes. She will be cutting herself
off from the social and economic development upon
which the South-Slavonic world will enter as soon as
the " preUminary question " of nationality has been
solved. When Bosnia gravitates towards Belgrade, the
moment will have come for Montenegro likewise to
merge herself in a " Greater Serbia."
The South-Slavonic Union, then, will articulate
itself into a " Triune Kingdom " of Croatia-Slavonia-
Dalmatia on the one hand and a " Greater Serbia "
on the other, with an autonomous Montenqpto as a
possible third partner.
Its geographical frontiers ^ are dettrmined already
by the boundaries of the several provinces. On the
North-West it will inherit the former frontier between
Austria and the " Crown of St. Stephen," on the Nortfa-
East it will be divided from Htugary by the line of the
Drave * and the Danube, on the South-West it will take
possession of the Adriatic coast-line from Spisca to
Fiume.'
< See M^ IIL
■ The triangular enclave between the Drave, the Mur, and the
Styiian border ta inhabited exclusively by Ctoats, and should therefore
b« anigaed to Croatia in addition, instead of being tnchtdcd, ai at
pKient, in the kingdom of Hungary.
' The coast ihould be distributed between the members of the
Confedency. At present it a entuely mooopolBed by Dafanatia, but
the " Triune Kingdom," as the price of its particularBOi, should cede
to Serbia and Montenegro such parts of the Dalmatian littoral as lie
Soutb-Bast of the Narenta estuary, induding Mctkovitch and Ragun,
the tennini ot the Bosnian Railway, as well as the shores of Cattaro
fiord, which is the natural doorway of the Montenepm Highlands.
The " Triune Kingdom " should be compensated m the opposite
quarter by the addition of three islands — Vc8lia,Chefao,and Lessin— -
31 present included in dte " Kltstenland " province of Austria.
i
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS 215
Its constitution can only vaguely be surmised* The
indiiridual states are certain to retain a very wide sphere
of sovereignty for themselves : what powers will they
ooflsent to delegate to the Federal Government i
Last stunmer, on the eve of the war^ Serbia and
Montenegro were negotiating a military and customs
union. The provisions of this conventioa will obviously
be extended to the wider federation : the defensive
organisation of the South-Slavonic Unit will be central-
ised under the presidency of King Peter^ and the
common military frontier will coincide with a common
tari£F-wall* This, however, is a minimum, and the
federal authorities will probably obtain control over the
more important financial and econbmic departments of
government as well* The administration of the railways
wQl assuredly pass into their hands.
At the same moment Serbia was concluding a conr
cordat with the Pope regarding the status of the Roman
Qiurch in Serbian territory* This agreement will
likewise ezteodn itself to the whole Union, and will
suggest an essential clause in the federal constitution*
The Federal Government must proclaim the com-
plete dvil equality of the three creeds current among
its dtittns — ^Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity,
and Islam — and it must guarantee the observance of
thb principle by the governments of the individual
states* The transformation of the South-Slavonic race
into a self-governing nationality depends on religious
toleration*
The new regime will stand or fall by its success in
conciliating the Moslems in Bosnia* While Serb and
Croat will rejoice whole-heartedly at their escape from
the Magyar yoke, the Bosniak alone will regret Austro-
Hungarian bureaucracy, as he regretted the Ottoman
\
ai6 THE BALKANS
anarchy it aapersedtd. He mil regard the national idea
with suspicion, and the long-deferred but inevitable
solution of the agrarian problem will seem to confirm
his fears, by aipgling h'T" out from the Christian
peasants and impoverishing him to their advantage.
Yet the spread of education will break down even the
Bosniak's sulleii tradition. As the consdousness of his
Slavonic language grows upon him, the barrier of his
oriental religion will melt away. Nationalism will
ultimately heal the breach between the descendant of the
Bogutnils and the men of his own blood from whom he
has been alienated for eight centuries by religion.
C. A Balkan ZoUverein
The secession of the Southern Slavs will dislocate the
structure of the Danubian Monardiy more seriously
than any mutilations on its Carpathian border. The
Hungarian member of the Dual Partnership will be cut
off from the sea by an independent sute of its own
calibre,^ occupying the whole region between the
Morava-basin and the Austrian frontier. The Magyars
will find the tables turned upon them. They will
eiqxrience henceforth the geographical disabilities they
imposed upon Serbia heretofore. Deprived of a coast-
line of their own, they will be compelled to make terms
with one of their neighbours to secure access to a port.
Satisfy this vital need they must, yet they vrill still
■ A reduced Hungary will itiU number nearly twelve milliaD
inbabiiana : a South-Slavonic Union will - -
nine, viz.:
Scibi . . . <
Craata
Moslemi .
Total
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN 217
be free to choose between two alternative means of
doing so. They may address themselves either to
Austria or to the South-Slavonic Union^ and the issue
will probably be taken up by the two political parties
yAddi have been struggling for the allegiance of the
Magyar nation.
Tisza and his following will press for closer tmion
^th Austria* They will take advantage of the national
animus against the Slavs, which will have been em-
bittered immeasurably by the result of the war, and
they will appeal to the national pride never to acknow-
ledge defeat. '^ Fate/' they will say, ** has robbed us
of our railway to Fiume, and of the harbour to which
we have devoted so much money and labour, yet Fiume
is only sundered by the Istrian peninsula from the
Austrian harbour of Trieste, and the one port is hardly
more remote from the AlfSld than the other. Through
Laibacfa, Marburg, and Steinamanger Trieste can be
brought into direct railway communication with Buda-
pest. Why humiliate ourselves by begging favours of
the enemy, when we can fall back upon the loyalty of
our Atistrian partners, who have passed with us through
the terrible ordeal of war i ^* Thus Tisza will argue
for the maintenance of the Dual System.
The secession of the Southern Slavs, however, will
upset that economic balance on which Dualism depends.
When either half of the Monarchy stretched from the
Carpathians to the sea, Austria controlled Hungary's
access to her markets in Central Europe, and Hungary
in like measure controlled Austria's access to her source
of raw material in the South-East. Each was in a
position to inflict equal economic damage upon the
other, and both would have been left losers by fiscal
warfare, while fiscal co-operation brot^t them mutual
2x8 THE BALKANS
gain. It was therefore in their common interest to
compromise on a joint tariiF, which gave each the
monopoly of the other^s custom*
Under the new conditions, on the other hand, the
operation of the Dual System would place Hungary at
Austria^s mercy* So long as the Southern Slavs on
the Austrian border were under the Magyar yoke,
Austria was debarred by Magyar policy from opening
up relations with them : once they are independent, she
will be able to deal with them as principals, and the
long-delayed railway connections will at last be estab-
lished between Salzbui^ and Vienna on the one hand,
and Agram on the other.
After this, Htmgary^s co-operation will no longer be
indispensable to Austria* Austria will be able to turn
Htmgary's flank at any moment by puttii^ her industry
into direct communication with the Balkan area in
Hungary's rear along this new land-route South of the
Drave. Htmgary will be ** side-tracked "" as effectively
by the completion of the Croatian railway system as
Serbia would have been by Baron Aerenthal's abortive
railway schemes in the Sandjak.
This would give Austria a crushing tactical advantage
in the decennial readjustment of the Joint Tariff* By
threatening to abandon the existing partnership, and
to contract a new one with the Southern Slavs instead,
she could force the Magyars to tmconditional surrender.
If the threat were carried into effect, Hungary would
be powerless to disturb Austria^s communications with
the South-East, while the Austrian tariff-wall would
debar her from her sole remaining egress to the sea.
Austria^s economic life would be tmaffected, Htmgary^s
would be completely paralysed.
Under these circumstances the equality of the two
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN 2x9
states would be reduced to a fiction^ and the Magyars
would discover that ** Dualism '* was compatible with
a thraldom worse than that from which they escaped
10x867.
This would give the ** Party of Independence '^ their
opportunity.
The Magyar ^* Left "" will issue from the war stronger
than it has ever been before. In 1906 the ** Coalition **
ruined itself over Magyarisation, but the European
settlement will loose this millstone from the Party^s
neck. When the majority of the non'-M^;yar popu-
lation has been detached from Htmgary altogether^
and the status of the remnant has been placed under
an international guarantee^ the racial problem will be
expunged from practical politics, and the ** Left "" will
actually be able to make party capital out of this blessing
in disguise, by casting the whole responsibility for it
upon their opponents*
'* Tisza/' they will say, ** has been Hungary^s evil
genius. He involved us in a European war ; he sent
our soldiers to their death in Poland, while he let the
Russians invade our homes across the tmguarded line
of the Carpathians ; to ransom half the land from the
tavagers he signed away the other half to the diplomatists:
now, not content with his disastrous war and his still
more disastrous peace, he has handed us over bound
hand and foot to Austria, in order to enshrine otu:
disasters in a permanent settlement.
'* Let us look facts in the face. Tisza tells us to hate
the Southern Slavs in the future, because we have
struggled with them for the mastery in the past. That
struggle is over : thanks to Tisza's own policy, it has
been concluded by our defeat. Why foster our hatred
any fenger, when the conclusion is unalterable f He
aao THE BALKANS
bids us be loyal to die AustTuiis,«4io at this very moment
afe taking advanta^ of our diffiailties to exploit us
in cold blood. Why sentimentalise over a partnership
solely recommended by opportunism, mbea loyalty
to it quendies the last glimmer of hope fisr our national
future 1*
" Let us shake o£F our paralysis, and help ourselves.
The secession of the Southern Slavs has destroyed tlie
equilibrium between Austria and out own country,
but it has also cast the South Slavonic Confederation
as an independent weight into the balance. The
equilibrium may still be righted, if we can indine this
weight to our side of the scales. Let us take the
initiative out of Austria's hands by denouncing the
' Ausgleich ' ourselves, and fisrestall her by securing
the partnership of the Southern Slavs for Hungary."
liiis hypothetical disputation between two political
parties stands in effect for the contest between national
fanaticism on the one hand and eocmomic necessity
on the other. Let us assume that a short experience al
" Dualism " under the new conditions converts the
Magyar nation * to the " Independence " point of view,
* Tbe Skrvaki art the only important element in Hungary that b
likely to ding to the Austrian connection. Theit country is boked by
nature with Ptewny, Buda-Pcst, and the Alffild : their dialect is
identical with that of the Tchechs ta Austria. Get^n^iby and nation-
ality thus draw them in oppoaitc diiectioni, and their one hope of
reconciling the two factors lies in some form of nattooal devolution
within an unbroken " Danubian Unit" If Austria and Hungary pan,
the Slovaki must lacrifioe one factor or die other. The Tcbcois will
urge them to vindicate their nationality by ttf^fding frocB Hungary
to Austria. Ths would benefit the Tchcchs thcmsetvcs by ranr^ftrug
their numerical inferiority to the Austrian Gcnnani and giving them dte
proipect of a majority in the Reichtrath at Viemia, but it a doubtful
trbeuier the Slovaks would be influenced by this considefiitioa. Tlieir
tnitherbood with the Tchcdn extends to lai^uage alone : thnr have
never shared a common tradition, and there are few indicatam at
present of a common national consdousnes. The Slovaks will
probably defer to geography, and work out a natioeal 1^ of their
I
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN aai
and suppose that the ** Left "" supersedes Tis:^ in office
to carry out its rival programme : what response will
its overtures receive from the Southern Slavs i
The Southern Slavs will be torn between the same
two motives as the Ms^ars themselves. Their
national hatred of their neighbours is at least as strong
as their neighbours' hatred of them: with distant
Vienna they have always been on friendly terms* When
they find themselves in the proud position of being
wooed by Austria and Hungary in competition, prejudice
will certainly incline them to favour the Austrian suit«
Their economic interest, on the other hand, will really
be identical with the interest of Htmgary.
At the first glance their new economic position might
appear invulnerable : the territorial resetdement that
ciduded Htmgary from the sea will have assigned to
the Southern Slavs an extensive Adriatic seaboard, and
the possession of open ports is a guarantee of economic
independence. Yet so long as the new G)nfederation
stands alone, the settlement will not essentially have
improved the nation^s continental situation.
Before the war Serbia was isolated from Central
and Western Europe by the whole btdk of the Dual
Monarchy : after the setdement, the Austrian half of
it will still present a narrower but no less impenetrable
barrier to the tmited South-Slavonic nation, and the
game will be in Austria's hands more completely than
ever. She may start by playing off the Confederation
against Htmgary, but she will be free to reverse her
own witfam a regenerated Huflgarian state. Prophecy^ however, h
ioipcMnble. The relation of the Croats to the Serbs remained precisely
imUd till as recently as xgxa, and with this precedent before our eyes
we can oi^ say that if the Slovaks are inspired to identify themselves
with the Tchech nationality, they must be granted pet&ct liberty to
cny their cfaoioe into effect.
N
aaa THE BALKANS
tactics vbeaxvetaht pleases, and play o£F Hungary
against the Confederation. The Southern Slavs will
discover, like the Magyais, that Austria is mistress of
ihe initiative, so long as they attempt to cope with her
^ngle-handed. By the time the Hungarian Indepen-
dence Party makes its overtures, the Federal Govern-
ment will be ready to welcome xixm. Ezperienoe will
have prepared both nations simultaneously to compose
their feud and adopt the alternative policy of co-
operation.
If the negotiations are crowned with success, the
geographical structure of the " Danubian Unit "
will have proved itself a stronger force than national
chauvinism. The political edifice of " Dualism " will
have collapsed under the tempest, yet the Transleithania
which perished with the break^ of " St. Stephen's
Crown " will have reasserted its economic function in
a Zollverein between two independent national states.
The new Zollverein will prove in turn that the national
and the economic principles of articulation are not
fundamentally incompatible. A reconciliation on this
basis between the Magyais and the Southern Slavs
will win for both parties what they really want. The
Southern Slavs will enjoy national unity, the Magyars
economic freedom. The port of Fiume will become the
common property of the two states, and the railway that
links it with the AlfSld through Agram will be ad-
ministered oonjoindy in the interests of both.
The South-Slavonic Question has been the most
difficult problem in the Balkans. If we have fotmd its
solution, can we not apply our discovery to solve the
rest i The " Transleithanian ZoUvetein " will already
cover a wider area towards the South-East than was
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN
in the frontiers of Hapsbtu^ ** Trans-
cannot its limits be extended still further
direction^
idships as well as the enmities of Serbia will
by the South-Slavonic Federation, and
^ooxid Balkan War Serbia has maintained a
iding yrith Roumania and Greece* This
been inspired in part by the fear of
reprisals, but chiefly by the discovery of
lomic interests of an endurix^ character.
means of providing for these interests could
jthan the incorporation of Serbians two friends
Iverein.
itely after the settlement at Bukarest in
of 1913, Roumania began to negotiate with
the construction of a railway-bridge across
tbe at Tumu Severing whidi was to link
ly systems of the two countries. Roumania
a coast-line of her own on the Black Sea, but
this door is condemned to make the
passage of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles,
at any moment be brought to a complete
by the caprice of the Ottoman Government,
convention with Serbia was Rotunania's
towards an open port on the Adriatic, and
It struggle between Serbia and the Dual
ly Roumanian as well as South-Slavonic interests
If Bosnia becomes Serbian soil and the
Serbian railhead at Ujitze is connected through
system with a port on the Adriatic, the new
serve not only the basin of the Morava, but
Wallachian plain beyond the bridge at Tumu
SccMa«>IIL
aa4 THB BALKANS
The freedom of this eoooonuc higfaw;^ will be s
important to Roumania as tbe freedom of du Fiome
Railway is to Hungary, and it will be open to her to
secure it by the same method. Rouraania mtl almost
certainly ^iply for membership in the " Transleithaniaii
Zotivemn," and the two origmal members will consuk
their beat interests by grantii^; her request. Roumama
will win her outlet on the Adriatic : Hungary and die
Southern Slavs will gain in return free passage over die
Roumanian railways to the port of Costanza <» the
Black Sea.'
(ii.) By another railway convention the Bukaiest
settlement linked Serbia to Greece.
Befrice the Balkan Wars, Greece was practicaUy in
the position of an island : for communication with coa-
tinental Europe she was as dependent upon the sea as
Great Britain and Ireland. By 1908 she had constructBd
a railway of standard European gai^e from Athens as
br Nordi as Larissa, and before 1913 she had extended
it throu^ the pass of Tea^>e to the point liriiere dv
Gncco-Turkish frontier struck the coast of the JBgean.
The undertaking had involved great engiaeering
difficulties and a proportionate expense, yet just vhea
the arduous part of the task had been accomplished, and
no physical barrier remained between the Gieek railhead
and the terminus of the European system at Salomfca,
die Ottoman Govenmient cheated the Greek nation d
its object by refusing to allow die ptolongaticm of the .
line throi^ Turkish territory.
tttatia i8;6> 1871, 167^ iS^ — the riwr wat ihrown open to fm
ninCiCioo &aQi tis nmiai k ttr ttpwanli tM the " Iran GfttBA." Sc^
gaiaa cnft, bomtvtt, canoot mxad above BtaHn, and the gnatmt fie
o[ Qiit internatioiul section ii only availabk for barges and mc
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN aas
In X9Z2-*i3 this obstacle was removed by force* The
Titaty of Bttkarest left Greece in possession of Salonika
tiaeif , and the construction of the last link in the railway
from Athens was immediately taken in hand«^ With
its eomidetion, the orientation of Greece will be chat^^«
Heretofore the traffic between Greece and Europe has
oamcd at Patras on the G)rinthian Gulf, the terminus
of steamship routes to Brindisi and Trieste : hereafter
the primacy will pass from steamer to railway, and
Rattvas yield precedence to Sabnika*
The connection of Athens and Salonika, however, is
of litde use in itself, unless Greece can secure free
passage for her commerce along the route kadii^ from
• Sfllnnflra to Central and Western Europe. This neces-
:i sky has given Greece an economic interest identical
^ nith that of her new Serbian neighbour.
i^ While Sakmika and the seaboard of Macedonia was
ff assigned to Greece, the whole hinterland was incor-
^ porated in Serbia, and from the frontier-station of
^\ Yetyeli* Northwards the trunk-line up the Vardar
1^ valley to Uskub and down the Morava valley to Bel-
^ gItaAt now runs exclusively through Serbian territory.
^4 Beyood Belgrade the Dual Monarchy shut out Greece
^i and Serbia alike from Central Europe, just as it barred
^ Roomania and Serbia alike from the Adriatic beyond
j^ the laflfaead at Ujitaoe.
^ Greece therefore had as strong an interest as
* See lifap IV. The Mctjon under oonstnictioii k about acve&ty
nuks long. Starting from the old railhead beyond Tempe, it iktrfi
^ the Saltan fhore in a Northerly ditcction, below the Eastern apim of
Je^ linnt Olym^u*, bridges the River Vistritsa C Haliacmnn % and
*zl cSmcs a junction tnunraately beyond it with the old line oonnecttng
9^, Sakmiha and Monastir. Fiom this jimctjon die Athens Railway will
See Map IV.
^ wwr aooas the ffailoniian " Campagna.
3a6 THE BALKANS
Roumania in seeking economic partnership with the
South-Slavonic state, and she negotiated a railway
agreement on very similar lines. She gave Serbia free
access to the JEgtaa, and received in return the freedom
of the continental route as far as the Austro-Hungarian
frontier. Like Roumania, she speculated on the
eventual removal of the Austro-Hungarian barrier :
in the present stru^e the Southern Slavs are fi^^iting
the Greeks' battle as well as their own, and any policy
that enables them to succeed in their endeavour must
oommend itself equally to Greece. If the South-
Slavonic federation can only oope with Austria by
joining Hui^ary in a Zollverein, then it is the interest
of Greece to enter the Zollverein too. Her application
will not be refused, for she has as much to give as to
receive. The admission of Roumania will extend the
Zollverein to the Black Sea : the admission of Greece
will realise the " Trend Eastward " by bringing it
down to the JEgtaa.
This twofold increase in its membership will have
eiq>anded the Zollverein from its Transleithaman
nucleus to the opposite limits of the Balkans. Four
national imiis will ab^ady be included within its
boundary : will it succeed in federating the two that
remain i U Albania and Bulgaria can be induced to
enter the fold, the Zollverein will become co-extensive
with the whole Balkan area.
(iii.) Albania will not find it easy to stand out c£ a
combination to which both Greece and the South-
Slavonic Federation beloi^. Tlie country consists of a
strip of coast fronting the heel of Italy across the narrowest
part of the Adriatic and backed by a sone of barren
mountains, through which several passages lead East-
ward into Macedonia and descend eventually to the
A BALKAN ZOLLVBRBIN 337
Nortfaern littoral of the JBgtBn. This hinterland is
enctrckd by Greek and South Slavonic territory on all
sides.
Albania has no history* The principality was created
fay the fiat of the Pbwers ; its limits were laid down
by the conference of ambassadors that supervised the
making of the Treaty of London ; its frontiers were
drawn out in detail by an international boundary-
Qommission. It was called into existence not because
it had the will to exist as a national state^ but simply
as an alternative to a vacuum that would inevitably have
been filled by the encroachment of the Greek and
Serbian frontiers* Its function is to ^' hold the ring/*
wfaSe the xiative population develops from a biarbarous
aggregate of dans into a civilised nationality*
Meanwhile^ Albania has started life destitute. Her
population is uneducated and her material wealth
tueiploited. Her only immediately available asset
is her geographical position. She is mistress of two
ports wiiich have recently won notoriety in Burope.
The direct transit from Brindisi ^ leads to the Southern
extremity of the Albanian coast. Here lies the moun-
tatn-lodoed basin of Avlona, which disputes with Spezsia
Bay the daim to be the finest harbour in the Mediter-
ranean, but suffers more than Spessda from the high
mountains that hem it in on the landward side. In
^te of the limestone barriers, Avlona is likely to
become the termintis of a narrow-gauge railway,*
wfaidi will work its way up the valleys of the Viosa
and Dhrynos to Greek Yannina, and thence descend to
Arta and Agrinion, whence a line of narrow gaug^ runs
already to a point opposite Patras on the North coast of
Tlie cfOBuiff occupMS most of the niglic in an onltiiafy inafl
aa8 THE BALKANS
the Connthian Gulf. This route will probably coinpefr
with the Salonika Railway for die ei^Mreaft-ttaffic
between Paris and Athens*
Duraao, the other port, lies half-way up the Albanian
ooast-line; The transit from Italy is aooordingly
longer, and the harbour itself is wretched beyond
description. The town lies huddled under the Southern
lee of a group of sand-dunes, which are linked to the
mainland by a malarial waste of marshes and lagoons.
The deposit of the swamp has silted up the sea &r out
beyond the actual shore-line, and die smallest steamer
cannot approach within half a mile of the jetty • Durazvo
has nothing to recommend it except its oommunicatioos
with the interior, which are as excellent as those of
Avlona are poor.
Since the Roman period Duraao has been the
terminus of a route ^ which ascends die valley of the
Skumbi to Elbassan, penetrates by a pass to the valley
of the Black Drin, crosses die stream at Struga, what
it issues from the Lake of Ohrida, and then, after
skirting the lake shore and passing through (Mirida
itself, breasts a second mountain range and descends
at last into the basin of Monastir.
To compensate Serbia for the renunciation of terri-
torial sovereignty over Duraao, the Powers bestowed
on her the freedom of the port, and gave her the ri^
to construct a railway through Albanian territory
in order to connect this outlet with her own railwaj
system* The route we have described will probably
be diosen for the final section of the new Serbian line.
From Mbnastir a railway already leads South-Eastward
through Greek territory to Salonika : it will only be
* Set Hap IV. The Rofnam tmpiovtd the tack mto a neCafled
road, tbcir ^ via Bgnatu.'*
A BALKAN ZOLLVERBIN aag
necettary to construct anotiier section Northwards from
Moosstir to Uskxib,^ and the whole of Macedonia wiU
have been broug^ into direct commtinicatton with the
Adriatic seaboard*
Albania thtis possesses two commercial highways of
pcKential value to her Greek and South Slavonic neig^-
bottfSy and her future prosperity depends upon die
development of traffic aloi^ diem* It is therefore of
vol tmportanoe for her to obtain entrance into the
Balkan Zollverein* If she remains otrtside it, Greece
and the South Slavonic Federation will dispense widi
her ports, and open up equivalent routes to the Adriatic
within their own frontiers* The iron tarifif-wall of the
Zottverein will ring Albania round on the landward
side, and since there is no local traffic in die principality
itself, Aviona and Dttrasczo will never be awakened by
the sdr of commerce* If she decides upon isolation,
Albania will be condemning herself to death : if die
joins hands with her neighbours, she will be laying the
faundadon of that economic progress whidi is her first
necessity*
incofporation in the ZoUverein will also solve several
pfoUems raised by the delimitation of the Albanian
fponCier*
(a) Towards die North-Bast, die diplomatists as-
s^poed the yAiait ** Metoya ** district to Serbia and
Montenegro*'
The award did justice to die principle of nationality,
for die South-Slavonic element in the local population
sdll preponderates over the Albanian intruders licenced
fior years to exterminate it by the Turkish Government*
'Swll^iIV*
•SKMapIV: tfie dtstrict couidd« with te b«fai of tfie WWie
L "
390 THE BALKANS
On tbe other h2iid, it inflicted considetable hard-
ship upon the dans inhabiting the mountainous
country immediately West of the Metoya, iriio had
been accustomed to deal with the outer world through
Ipek, Jakyva, and Prisren, the thiee towns of the plain,
and now found themselves barred out from their only
available market-places by the new Serbian frontier.
The Zollverein wilt eliminate the new injustice widwut
restoring the old. The Serbo-Albanian frontier will
remain where the commissioners drew it, but since it
will no loiter constitute a customs-barrier the clansmen
from the Albanian side will once more be able to visit
the towns in the Serbian plainland as freely as ^riien
plain and moimtain were yoked together politically by
Ottoman misrule.
(6) The mountains of Northern Albania verge on
their other flank towards the Lake of Skodra/ and half
the clans descend to market at Skodra town, which lies
at die lake's South-Eaatem extremity. Geography has
destined Skodra to be a focus of traffic, llie late
discharges itself past her walls into the channel of the
Boyana River,* and for the small steamers that ply upon
the lake ^ Boyana is navigable from this point to the
sea. The sea-going steamers employed in the coastal
trade find good ports of call at Duldgno, a few miks
North of the Boyaoa's mouth, and at San Giovanni di
Medua, a few miles South of it. Both these barbotus
(if they may be dignified by the name) are connected
with Skodra across level country by good high-roads.
If all die shores of the lake were Albanian, no problem
vnMild arise, but unfortunately its North-Westcm
■ A bfaacfa thrown off by the muted lueam of the White and Bbck
Dno, after tt has wound it! way thn»»h the Albaniia nututtaiiiii, ud
- 'leiea. SceBbpEV.
A BALKAN ZOLLVBRBIN 931
extftmity passes beyond the Albanian frontier, and
penetrates deep into die mountain-mass of Montenegro*
PbysicaUy, Montenegro and Northern Albania con-
stitute a single region, of which Skodra is the natural
cqutal : historically, this homogeneous hinterland has
been partitioned between two hostile races, which
can never merge themselves into one political organism*
An open door at Skodra is equally vital to Albania and
to Montenegro, yet the town cannot be included in the
political frontiers of both at once.
The rightful ownership of Skodra is not in doubt*
The Southern Slavs extend to the head of the lake, but
an Albanian population dwells along its lower shores,
and Skodra itself, at its opposite extremity, is a purely
Albanian dty* The struggle for Skodra is the history
of Montenegrin encroachment upon alien territory*
The Sfontenegrins have been forced in this direc-
tkm through the fatilt of Austria-Hungary, which has
debarred them from their lawful outlet to the South-
Slavonic coast* Had the Montenegrins been at liberty
to reach the sea through Cattaro fjord, by incorporating
the kindred villages that fringe the waterside, they
would never have tried to reach it throtigh Skodra by
subjugating an Albanian population almost as numerous
as their own*
In 1878 the Gmgress of Berlin assigned to
the harbour of Antivari, beyond the
ity of the Austrian littoral* Antivari is not a
convenient port for the Black Mountain* A hig^ range
of hills blocks the way thither from the head of Skodra
Lake, yet the Montenegrins have striven with success to
overcome this physical disadvantage by the construction
of a motmtain-railway across the barrier*^ Austria-
^ It stam from Virpaaor, on the lake-slioft.
k jr*i«if ««(U^*j
^ 41 I ^ I iT,
a3a THE BALKANS
t^ingary, however, grudged her South-^avonic ad^-
bour even this haxd-wcm economic liberty. By a
ooiollary to the Berlin Treaty she secured for beiidf
powers of control ^ over the trafi&c of the new Montene-
grin port, and to win an nntrammeled outlet Montenegio
was forced to go still further afield. After the Berlin
settlement had produced a revulsion of feeling in Great
Britaint Gladstone succeeded Disraeli in office to undo
as far as possible what Disraeli had done, and one of
his first acts ' was to extort the transference of Duldgno
from Turkey to Montenegro.
C^adstone's gift was more beneficent in its intentton
than in its result. The only practicable route between
the Montenegrin hinterland and Duldgno lies throi^h
Skodra. So loi^, therefore, as Skodra remained in
other hands, Dulc^no was of no economic value to its
new masters, while Skodra was deprived of its natural
port. In 191J the Balkan War gave Montenegro die
opportunity to annex Slasdra as well, but mbea the
fortress capitulated the Powers rightly intervened, aaid
the inclusion of Srodra in the new Albanian principality
put an end for ever w Monten^^ hopes.
Skodra and Duldgno can now never be reunited tinder
Monten^rin sovereignty: the logical alternative is
their reunion within Albania. Baulked of Skodca,
Montenegro will lose nothing by the retxocessiao of
Skodra's port, and her whole title to Duldgno wdl £ill
to the ground as soon as Cattaio ^ord and the Austrian
Uttoral on either side of it have passed into her posaesBton.
Vet no amount of compensation on the opposite flmk
mil induce Montenegro to yield territory to Attica
witiiout some equivalent return on Albama's part.
'^
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN 933
The present territorial arrangement renders Duldgno
eoooomically useless to both states : Montenegro will
not barter away her political rights exotpt on terms
vhidi restore Duldgno^s economic utility not only for
Albania but for herself, and it is easy to see how the
bargain must run* If Montenegro on her side is to
leaotmce all claims to territorial sovereignty over
Dulctgno as well as Skodra, Albania on hers must
grant Montenegro complete freedom of traffic through
Skodra as well as Duldgno*
By joining the Balkan ZoUverein Albania vnll fulfil
her part of this compact. Economic co-operation with
her neigfabours will thus win for her a most desirable
extension of her territorial soverdgnty, and wiU heal
her long feud with Montenegro by recondling here also
die daims of nationality and economics.
(c) Beyond Avlona, the Powers assigned to Albania
die country known as Epirus.^
Their decision set Geography at defiance* With
Avlotia Epirus possesses hardly a single link : with the
Greek territory towards the South and East her com-
munications are well established* In this instance maps
are misleading* The rivers of Epirus certainly debouch
upon, the Albanian coast, but they force their way
dnrmgh gorges where no road can follow* To travel
from Koritza to Etux>pe you do not descend the valley
of die Devol to the Adriatic but cross the watershed into
Macedonia and board at Fbrina the train to Salonika*
If you follow the road inland from Santi Quaranta, the
only port of call on the Epirot coast, it does not lead you
Northwards to Berat, but South-Eastwards to Yannina,
die prindpal town of North-Westem Greece* From
^SeellapIV* llieiiaiiieliMbMOQiiMdtooovcrtfieihicedJMnofii
of ffiiiriifTij Aigyfokaitio^ md Koritxi*
^4 'THE BALKANS
the ge(^taphical point of view, Epinis and Gttece are
inseparable.
liu Powers took their stand upon nationality.
" The country," they argued, " may be Greek, but the
people are Albanian. They speak an Albanian dialect."
This ai^ument betrays a misconception of vrbat
nationahty means. Nationality is not an objective
attribute but a state of consciousness which depends for
its stimulus upon a certain degree of civilisation. We
have seen that among the majority of the population
included within the prindpahty's frontiers it is con-
spicuously absent : they have no group consciousness
beyond the clan. The Epirots alone are civilised enot^
to possess it, and their civilisation and nationality are
both drawn from the same external source.
The s^nificant fact about the Epirot is not that he
speaks Albanian at home, but that he learns Greek at
school,* and finds in his adopted langu^e a passport
to a wider life. The Epirots are the only Albanians
who can boast a history, and their history consists in
the casting off of Albanian barbarism and the putting
on of European culture in its Greek form. After the
Turkish conquest the majority of the Albanians were
converted to Islam : the Epirots alone followed the
example of their Greek neighbours, and remained loyal
to the Orthodox Church. In the eighteenth century
the Orthodox ecclesiastical tradition developed into a
national Greek renaissance : the Epirots were fired by
the new movement, and welcomed the Greek sdiool
^t grew up beside the Greek church. They looked
forward as eagerly as the Greek of Macedonia or
' The village schools in Epirus hne monl^ been endowed bf natives
who nude their fortunes in Greek commefcul centns like Sn^ma and
Alnandiia.
A BALKAN ZOLLVBRBIN 235
Ifitylitii to the day when nationality should find
Gtpttsskm in political liberation and unification. When
Yanmna fell in the spring of 1913, the day seemed to
have dawned. The Pbwers thrust them into the outer
darkness of the Albanian principality just when they
were on the threshold of the promised land.
The Bpirots have not submitted tamely to the ruin of
their hopes. The Powers could prevent their annexa-
tion to Greece^ but they could not compel their adhesion
to Albania. In* the summer of 19x3 they raised a
national militia, and have successfully resisted all
attempts on the part of the Albanian Government to
assert its sovereignty. If Albania is to secure the
friendship of Greece, she must abandon a daim which
she cannot enforce* The Bpirots have proved that
common language is in this case no national bond, by
taking up arms for the rig^t to me^e themselves in a
nation of other speech.
When she has solved the frontier problems of the
Metoya, Duldgno, and Bpirus, Albania will be free
to face the task of internal construction. The new
government will here find the exercise of its authority
hanqiered by the very lack of that national consciousness
the presence of whidi in Bpirus has made it altogether
i]]^)ossible. Its writ wiU run where the Ottoman
sohan's ran, in the ports and the plains, but if
it is wise it will follow the Ottoman policy of leaving
the mountains to themselves. To the clansman it will
make no difference that the government is ** national ^ :
he will still view its action simply as a menace to the
liberty of the dan, and he will feel no greater obligation
to pay taxes to an ** Albanian '^ exchequer at Duraao
than to a Pasha who collected them at the same '' konak **
for transmission to Cotistantinople. The Albanian
a^ THE BALKANS
revenues vnH depend not upon the oontribittions of the
Albanian population but upon the customs levied od
the trade of Avlona and Dunao: diat trade in turn wili
depend upon the admission of the prindpalitjr to the
Balkan 2^11verein*
(iv.) The 2^11verein vnH not be complete until it has
secured the adhesion of Btilgaria.
Snce the Balkan Wars the Bulgarian territory has
extended to the ^ean as well as to the Black Sea,^
and the Bulgarian frontier thus blocks every land-coute
from the remainder of the Balkan area to the Black Sea
Straits and to the Anatolian continent that lies beyond**
The Zollverein would suffer grave injury from Bulgarians
economic hostility, and in her present mood Bulgaria
is prepared to inflict as much injury upon her neighboucs
as she can*
The latest liberated of all the Balkan natioost she
devoted herself with fierce singleness of purpose to the
realisation of her national destiny* In the Balkan Wars
she staked all to win all, and issued the loser* For
her misfortune she has chiefly herself to blame* By
her murderous attack upon the Serbian outposts she
deliberately provoked the disastrous struggle with her
allies, and her tactless dipk>macy was responsible for
the intervention of Roumania* Yet the victors sacrificed
the righteousness of their cause to a most unrighteous
exploitation of their victory** In the division of spoils
at Bukarest they stripped Bulgaria naked, and unless
'See Map IV*
* The moot impofiant of these routes is the " Oriental Railway/'
which strikes Eastward out of the Morava valley at Ntsh» entecs
Bulgarun territory just beyond Pirot, andpanes through Sofia, Philip-
popolts,attd Adnanoplc to StambouL Ine line is continued on tbe
opposite ride of the Bosphorus by the Anatolian Railway, which atarts
mtn Stamboul's Asiatic suburbs.
* Bulgaria is the Germany of the Balkans: the Treaty of Bukareit s
a wamiiBg lo the Allies.
1
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN zyj
iiiif^S ate pnspoxtd to faru^ tfactr setdement more into
acoocd with justioe, they must not expect forgiveness
fmn their victim*
The treaty left Bulgaria with a heavy score ^painst
eadi of them*
(a) Between the Danube and the Black Sea Roumania
took a atrip of territory which had belonged to Bulgaria
stnct her creation and contained no Rouman inhabi*
tanta.^ Her object was to lengthen her cramped coast-
liae and to open a direa route throt^ Siltstria between
Bokarest and the sea, and she regarded her act as a
rectification of frontier, not as the recovery of a saoed
national inheritance*
The difEerence between die two states should thus
be cafiabk of adjustment* If die present war brings
Roumania accessions of territory in other quarters, she
flMght modify the Dobrudja frontier again in Bulgarians
favour : ' if Bulgaria enters the ZoUverein, she mig^
rctrocede the whole strip, for the political fcontiet will
then no longer constitute an economic barrier*
Nq^tiations on this subject are already on foot
between Bulgaria and Roumania, and there is every
reason to anticipate their success*
Greece and Serbia did not mulct Bulgaria of territory
she possessed before the war, but they took the Uon's
share of the Turkish spoils* The setdonent of Bukarest
pcactically eaduded Bulgaria from Macedonia, ahhou^^
the majority of the Macedonian population is Bulgsur
m nationaUty*
(6) The Bulgar race borders upon the Greek along a
line nfimding from Salonika Eastwards as far as the
Bb^ Sea** Throughout th» zone die coast is pre-
* Ite poptilafipo li oompoMd of Biilgm md BtdsMopUl Tsitis*
' At pccent the line rum from Tttrtiifad ID Baltdttk.
•SeelbpIV.
s
23S THE BALKANS
dominantly Greek and the hinterland predominantiy
Bulgar, but there are large areas where the two nationali-
ties are inextricably intermingled^ village ahemattng
with village in the same valley*
It is impossible to draw a political frontier in strict
accord with the racial distribution* If Bulgaria claimed
every Bu^^ar village, it would not be feasible to sift
out the Greek enclaves, and the whole debatable zone
down to the coast-line itself would be drawn within
the Bulgarian frontier : on the other hand, if Greeoe
asserted her title to every patch of Greek population,
she would have to incorporate not only the whole coast
but extensive portions of the Bu^ar hinterland*
It is dear that the problem can only be solved by a
compromise, and durit^ the negotiations which were
interrupted by the Second Balkan War, Venezelos, the
Greek premier, worked for the partition of the zpot into
two sections*
The Eastward or Thradan section was to be co-
extensive with the lower basin of the River Maritza :
here he proposed to resign the coast as well as the
hinterland to Bulgaria* The Westward or Macedonian
section was to indude the lower courses of the Vardar
and of the Struma, and here he claimed for Greece a
suffident hinterland to cover the coast*
When the negotiations were superseded by war^ and
victory put the initiative entirely into Vene^elos* hands,
he interpreted his prindple in the sense most favourable
to Greece, and extended his ** Western section *^ as
far as the River Mesta*^
From the racial point of view the settlement v^as still
a compromise* If Vene^elos annexed to Greece the
Bulgar hinterland West of the Mesta, he honourably
*SccMapIV.
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN 239
abandoned to Bulgaria the Greek littoral between the
'Mesta and the Marit^a. The Bu^ars demand a modi-
fication of the present frontier on economic and not on
national grounds. The natural route from Sofia, their
c^tal, to the sea follows the valley of the Struma
down to die port of Kavala, a short d^tance East of its
mouth* The Treaty of Bukarest left the greater part
of this route in Bu^aria's hands, but barred her out
from its terminus* Bulgaria repudiates reoondliation
with Greece till this economic wrong is righted : Greece
refuses to satisfy Bulgaria at the cost of territorial cessions
which would violate Venezelos* racial settlement*
Bulgaria's entrance into the ZoUverein is thus the
only means of composing the quarrel, for it will satisfy
Bulgaria's economic need without necessitating the
change of political frontier* Kavala, like Salonika,
will remain under Greek government, but Bulgaria
will be as free to make commercial use of it as Serbia is
free to trade through Salonika*
In this instance the benefits of the ZoUverein accrue
to Bulgaria, and by refusing to enter it on this account
she will be inflicting more harm on herself than on her
neighbours*
(c) Bulgaria's differences with Roumania and Greece
have proved to be not irremediable : her last and most
serious difference is with Serbia, and this time the parts
are reversed* Bulgaria claims territory on national
grounds: Serbia refuses to cede it for economic reasons*
The Vardar rises on South-Slavonic soil, and Uskub,
at the junction of its head-waters, is as truly a Serb
city as Nish or Belgrade* Below Uskub, however, the
whole basin of the river is occupied by a Bulgar popula-
tion which extends as far Westward as the Albanian
frontier* The nationality of this population is not in
340 THE BALKANS
doubt : it is as Bulgar in sympadiy as In diakctr^
and it regards the Serbian regime as a foreign doimii»-
tion. Serbia gave witness against herself in the treaty
she oonduded with Bulgaria in the mtwnmrr of 1913
before their ioint declaration of war i^^inst Turkey.
She admitted Bu^aria's ezclusiTc r^t to the region
South of Uskub, and even left the allotment of Usknb
itself to the arbitration of the Tsar.
By extendii^ her sovereignty down the Vardar &om
Uskub to Yeryeli, Serbia committed a crime ;^ipst
the principle of nationality \riuch can only be ilii 1I
by the retrocession of the irtiole territory in qucstioa
to Bulgaria.' Before the oa^xtak of the present war
sudi a suggestion would have been Utopian : without
compensation, Serbia would never have consented Q>
disgorge the greater part of the spoils for which she had
fought two desperate campaigns. If Bosnia faUs to
her at the impending settlement, and her strength is
fiirdier increased by the incorporation of die " Triune
Kingdom " in a South-Slavonic Federation, she will be
in a position to do full justice to Bulgaria on her IMacc-
donian frontier without being crippled by the territonal
loss. Should she still persist in her refusal, she would
*Tbne » no troth in tfas Strtnan coatentiaii that At SInvnc
dahct ipoken in Centnl Macedonia a a niiety of " Sotttb-Stmak "
" SonA-Slavooic " and Bulgar. The two bnguaga an atrnf^
dillltratiited ttom one anotbet, and then can be no ainbiguitjr in dw
danuficatfon of the Macedonian paton uoda ooe head or iba oOta.
1
twanty yean
with OMipcalratt of ifatiriootw who live b«|anddwBulnriaa&
*Tha moral obli^ttoo cowracwd by her treaty in the Snmnol
ui3> On dK odiet hand, if the securti her naiio«ial unity aa a cmdt
ol the prcacnt war, her obligation to itapect the prtndplc of natiaoaSiy
h Bwlgaria'i case will be proportionately mcifed.
A BALKAN ZOLLVBREIN 341
be infhienccd by eoonomic considerattons that aie not
afiecced by the racial and territorial factor.
By fe&oundng her sovereignty over the Vardar-basin
Serbia would put herself out of touch with her Greek
and Albanian partners in the Zollverein* Astride the
Salonika Railway £rom Yevyeli to Uskub, Bulgaria
would sever Serbia from her outlet on the Agean and
deprive Greece of her continental railway-connection
widi Western Europe through the territory of the South-
Slavonic Federation. Established West of the Vardar
in the basin of Monastir, Bulgaria would block Serbians
ptospecrive route through that point to an Albanian
port on the Adriatic.
Unless they are guaranteed against these economic
disasters^ it is certain that neither Greece nor Serbia
will allow Bulgaria to recover an inch of Macedonian
territory, and the only effective guarantee is the entrance
of Bulgaria herself into the Balkan Zollverein.
The situation, therefore, will stand thus : Bulgaria
will make her entrance into the ZoUverein conditional
upon territorial compensation : Serbia and Greece will
only grant her this compensation on the condition that
she enter the ZoUverein.
It will not be difficult to mediate between these two
points of view, and as soon as Bulgaria has redinte-
grated herself into the Balkan brotherhood she will find
die way open for a rectification of the Macedonian
frontier. This definitive line of cleavage between the
two Slav nationalities will coincide in general with the
line laid down in the abortive convention of 19x2*^
Starting £rom the Eastern firontier of Albania as
AMftMt^A by the International Commission, it
probably follow the old boundary between the
'See Map IV.
242 THE BALKANS
'' vilayets ** of Kossovo and Monastir in an Easterly
direction, till it strikes the River Vardar at a point
below the junction of the Peinya tributary but above the
town of Veles.^ After crossing the Vardar, it nug^t
run along the river-bank up-stream, and continue its
course up the Left bank of the Peinya to a point due
East of Uskub* Here it might turn Eastward once more
and mount the watershed between the Peinya and
Bregalnitza valleys till it reaches the summit of Mount
Qsigova on the present Serbo-Bulgarian frontier.
This line would leave to the South-Slavonic Federa-
tion both Uskub itself and the railways that connect
Uskub with Mitrovitza, Nish, and the Egri Palanka
Pass : to Bulgaria it would assign Ohrida,' the basin of
Monastir, the middle course of the Vardar, and all the
cotmtry between the Vardar and the Struma*'
We have now discussed the economic federation of
the six Balkan units : Hungary and the Southern Slavs,
Roumania and Greece, Albania and Bulgaria* We
can abstract our conclusion in the following formula: —
** The political deadlock between national aspirations
in the Balkan area is due to economic individualism :
economic collectivism is the necessary condition of
national self-realisation/'
^ Better known under its Turkish name as KGpriilQ (^ bridge-place *^.
* The cajxttal of the Bulgarian Empire in the devendi centuiy aj>.
•To begm with, Bulgaria will depend for railway oommunicatioa
with her new territory upon the Serbian line throu^ Uskub and the
Greek line through Salonika ; but she will certamly follow t^ her
inoorporation in the Zollverein and the rectification of her ficontier by
the construction of two new railways :
(i) From Kostendil down the valley of the Struma to Sertes, wliicfa
wiU give her a connection along the Greek railway system through
Drama to Kavala.
(iL) From Kostendil to Kodjana in the Bregalnitsa valley, over a
pass South of Mount Osigova, and dience throu^ Ishtip, Vcdcs, and
Prilep to Monastir. This will give her an independent connection with
her Macedonian territories.
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN 24?
Li the envifonment of a Zollverein Hungary and
die Southern Slavs, the Southern Slavs and Bulgaria,
Bulgaria and Greece, Albania and Montenegro — all
alike can compose their respective feuds and arrive at
a mutually satisfactory territorial recoxistruction on a
national txisis* The Zollverein seems to be the instru-
ment that will eradicate the seeds of war from the
Balkans, so far as those seeds are sown by the Balkan
nationalities themselves*
Our discussion, however, has also shown us that the
Balkan peoples are only responsible in a secondary
degree. They have erred in leaving their field unfenced :
dieir stronger neighbours are the enemy that has
scattered the tares.
1£ we recall the outstanding factors that militate
^;ainst Balkan peace, we shall find the root of them all
in the machinations of the Great Powers* If Serbia
has fallen out with Bulgaria and Montenegro with
Albania, it is because Austria-Hungary excluded both
Serbia and Montenegro from the Adriatic* If Albania
is at enmity with Greece, it is because Italian diplomacy
robbed Greece of Epirus* If Roumania and Bulgaria
are in dispute over the Dobrudja, it is because Russia
in 1878 swindled Roumania out of her coast-line North
of the Danube. If Albania is still likely to be convulsed
within, when she has setded her differences with her
two neif^ibours, it is because Austro-Hungarian pro-
paganda has incited the Catholic clansmen to make
the task of the Moslem government impossible* By the
boilding-^p of a Zollverein these standing tares may
be pulled out by the roots : how can we hinder their
replacement by others more devastating still i
The Balkan area has been a menace to peace because
it has been a no-man^s land, an arena flung open to the
344 THE BALKANS
strong natioDS of Europe, to tttapt them to turn aside
&offi the strait and narrow way of social advance and
tear each other in pieces for tiie proprietorship oi a
wilderness.
Once Germany has been what the Balkans are now.
In the seventeenth century she was dismembered by
the " Thirty Years' War," and in ^k eigfateei^
century the Powers fought over her carcase, as they have
been fighripg over the Balkans durii^ the century that
has just eiqiired : Sweden drew the sword to hold
Pomerania, France to seize the Left bank of the Rhine.
Bismarck did one good service to peace. By raiamg
Germany from the dead and making her the peer of die
Powers instead of their prey, he closed the German
arena to the conflicts of Europe.
No Bismarck will arise to weld tc^etber the Balkan
states and enrol them in the front rank of the com-
batants : that possibility need cost us neither hope nor
fear. Inspiration will come not from Central Europe,
die shadow from which the Balkans are being delivered
by the present war, but from America, the land of
promise to which Balkan immigrants are fin<1ing their
way in ever increasing numbers.
On the American continent durii^ the last century
the Latin Republics have lived through their " Balkan
phase " without disturbing the peace of the world at
lai^e, because the United States have held the ring
and have prevented the big dc^ outside from taking
part in the little dogs' sctiG9e. The Balkan situation
in Europe calls even more urgently for a " Monroe
Doctrine," and if it is to be directed inqurtially against
all the European Powers, its sanction must proceed
from the Balkan peoples themselves.
la co-operative movements it is the first step that
\
A BALKAN ZOLLVBREIN 345
is hard* J£ the Balkan states succeed in organising
diemselves in a Zollverein, the ZoUverein will almost
automatically develop into a defensive league*
Many dreams will be shattered when the Balkan
world presents a tmited £ront to the rest of Europe*
Turkey will realise that her tide is not destined to
ittttin £rom its ebb ; Russia will understand that there
is no k>nger a high-road to Constantinople on the
farther side of the Danube-delta ; Italy will recognise
diat die Straits of Otranto are a natiomd frontier ; and
Austria will avert her gaase at last £rom the East, and
knock for admission at Germany's door.
346 TRIESTE AND ITALY
CHAPTER V
TRIESTE AND ITALY
We are now in a position to solve the problem raised at
the close of our chapter on Germany* We had con-
cluded that if Germany were beaten by the Allies in the
present war, she would have to relinquish her subject
provinces of alien population, French, Danish, and
Polish ; and we had argued that it would be in the best
interests both of Germany herself and of her present
opponents if this loss were compensated by the gain of
** German Austria/^
We admitted, however, that this solution of the
German question, convenient though it might be to us
all, depended upon the wishes neither of Germany nor
of Europe, but solely upon the initiative of the Austrians
themselves ; and we saw that we could only conjecture
the Austrian point of view by making clear to ourselves
the internal situation of the Dual Monarchy* Our
survey showed that the Austrian Germans would never
amalgamate with the German national state unless the
Hapsburg Empire had previously been laid in ruins, but
that in that event no other alternative would be left them,
since they were incapable of standing alone*
We then proceeded to discuss the Hapsbui^ Empire's
strength and weakness* We found that the Southern
Slav question was the determining factor in its fate :
if the Southern Slavs won their national unity outside,
and in despite of, the Dual Monarchy, the Monarchy
would inevitably be shattered in the process : but the
very victory of the Allies, which would make the in-
TRIESTB AND ITALY 347
corporation of the German Austrians in the German
Enqnre desirable from the general point of view, would
mddentally dissolve the Dual Monarchy by solvit^ the
Southern Slav question on just these lines, and would
thereby indirecdy cause the special interest of German
Austria itself to coincide with the universal interest of
Europe*
If, then, our forecast comes true, and the present
Austro*Hungarian organism is superseded in South-
Eastern Europe by a Balkan ZoUverein or Entente,
biiik up in harmony with Nationality instead of in
defiance of it, we may fairly confidently assume that the
"'New Germany ** which will simultaneously come into
being will include within its frontiers the Germans of
Austria*
We have now to define what territories and popula-
tions this ** New Atistrian ** member of the ** New
Germany ** will include* Large portions of the present
Wapabvag dominions have already been eliminated £rom
consideration* We have prophesied that all Galida
beyond the Carpathians will gravitate, under some
status or other, to the Russian Empire ; and all '' Trans-
kithania,'* both the territories of the Crown of St*
Stq>hen, and the outlying Austrian province of
Dahnatia, enter the vortex of the Balkans* There
remains only the section of the Austrian Crown-Lands
situated to the West of Hungary^s Western frontier*
Will the whole of this region rally to Germany en
Unci It is hardly conceivable that it should do so,
for there are several most important non-German
elements still entangled in it* The German population
in Austria, like the Ms^ar population East of it in
Hungary, ceases on the North bank of the Drave, and
Slavonic speech re^^ns South of the river as far as the
346 TRmSTB AND ITALY
sea ; but the situation is not so mmph here as in
Croatia. The Ooats, we stir, hare been atrocioody
treated by the Magyars, and, moreover, they are only
one fragment of a larger homogeneous popnlatian, t)i£
Southern Slavs, with -vthost other sectims they can
federate as soon as they have thrown off the Magyar
yoke. The Austrian " Slovenes " are an isolated little
branch of the Slavonic family, speaking a dialect dis-
tinctly different from Southern Slav.^ They have been
well treated by their German masters; and, what is
more inq>ortant still, they have no independent tradi-
tion or civilisation c£ dieir own. Laibach, die ducf
town of Krain," has a dioroughly German character, aod
GottBchee, in the extreme South of the country, is a
genuine enclave of German population.
U Krain were a unit by itself, it woukl probably
vote for continued union with the Germans aocss die
Drave, with iriiom politics have knit the district for
five centuries. But unfortunately Krain is inseparably
linked by get^raphy with the province of the " Kiisteii-
land," and the Slovene population, neglecting the
artificial boundary between the two arft«wtii»ira«i»>
districts, spreads evenly to the sea. Tha coast, how-
ever, has had a very different history from its hinter-
land. Here, too, the Slovene has adopted dvilisaiiaD
seoond^iand; but it has come to him from the opposite
quarter, and die ports have taken a completely baUan
colour. Trieste, indeed, was an early acquisition of die
H^sbu^,' but the Western half of Istxia belonged tD
Venice tfll the caOinction of her independence in rTgy,
and did not pass definitively to Austria till 1814. MoR-
* Tbcy aus^end j,im/xn> «t the oi
11:
' It bat bdcoKcd to them since 1389 aj>.
TRIESTE AND ITALY 349
over, the Slavonic substratum in the Southern parts of
the btriaa peninsula does not even speak the Slovene
dialect, but belongs to the neighbouring Southern-Slav
group.*
It is dear, therefore, that the coast, at any rate, will
sete die opportunity to detach itself £rom its present
German connections* But this coast and hmterland
fioim together just one of those geographical minima,
wUdi are the limit of practical political subdivision*
They most share the same political destiny, idiatever
it ni to be*
This brings us to the claims of Italy* The Italian
nation re-arisen has picked the mantle of Venice out of
the dust, and adorns her ambitions with an extensive
** fena irredenta ** across the Adriatic* We have passed
over her aspirations in Dalmada without a word, because
here the Venetian regime is a mere msmory, and has
lesttlted in no living racial fact, as any one who travels
up dies coast can see* Educated Dalmatian Slavs still
speak Italian as a second language» as educated Greeks
do in die Ionian Islands ; but the current speech of the
diope, streets and even the quays, and the exclusive
spcedi of the country-side, is the native South Slavonic,
and Italy has as little justification for coming here* as
she has for ruling in Corfu or 2^te *
In dbe Austrian Kiistenland her case is better* The
Ijtile Irtrian ports still possess a purely Italian popula-
tioo, and so did Trieste a century ago ; but in sharing
the economic movement of the nineteenth century and
^ In 1900 ibs provmoe of btria had ^4*000 inhahitaiila^ of vHioib
^>b(Mst d3S% were Italian and 66.7% Slav : the Istrian Croats number
about aoojooo : so that 90«ooo ta the highest estimate we can giTe for
the ftmatnuig Slavs in me penlBStth, j«e. the Slovcaes.
*Zan ii me onfar place in Dalmsiia where Italian ii in aav seoee a
aso TRIESTE AND ITALY
beooming a world-port, Trieste has vastly increased her
sise, like other European cities, by drawing into herself
the rural population £rom a wide zone of attraction.
Modem urban concentration takes no accxnint of
mediaeval race-divisions, and the nucleus of Italian
Triestini has been alloyed with a mass of Sknrene
imm^fiants who have come to stay. Encouraged by
the Austrian govenunent, the new Slovene element h^
been struggling for some years with the Italian to share
the control of the municipality and seems likely to make
good its claim : at any rate Trieste is no longer a purely
Italian city.'
Th^ brings us to the negative conclusion that the
" Slovene Unit " must not be incorporated politically
either in Italy or in the new Germany. Laibach and
Gottschee would veto Italian annexation, Parenzo and
Abba^ia German, the Slovenes who are making them-
selves a power in Trieste would veto both. It remains
that it should either enter the " Southern Slav United
States " or become an independent political unit
guaranteed by Europe.
The latter alternative is undesirable. Tiny states in
occupation of important and intenselyKOveted economic
assets are not likely to possess the resources for ad-
ministering these assets on the increasinj^y large scale
to which modem life is tending, or for defendii^ tiiem
against the agression of bi^er organisms that dunk
they cotdd use the opportunity better. But it would be
still worse to force a political destiny upon a population of
this size against its will. It is probable, however, that
' The total popnUtion of Ttieue is 339.000, iaduding about
170.000 Italiant = 7404 %
^fioo Slovenes = 18.77 %
TRIESTB AND ITALY 25X
the general sense of the various elements, as expressed
in die plebiscite, will reveal itself in favour of federating
die unit vrith the Southern Slavs as a third member of
dieir Union* Guaranteed independence would hardly
relieve the Italian and German minorities from the
iheniatLve fear of being engtdfed respectively in the
German and Italian national state ; and such a possi-
bility would be &r more reptxgnant to them than the
pioqpect of loose co-operation, more or less on their
own terms, with a Slavonic nationality. The Sbvene
majority has recently been roused to active conscious-
xKss by that wave of national enthusiasm ^^lich the
Serbian victories over Turkey and Bulgaria sent vibrat-
tBg through the Southern Slavs* While a few years
ago it would have foUowed in the Italians' or die
Germans' wake, it will now take an initiative of its own«
Neverdieless, where wishes are divergent, the negative
proposition often wins, and if the plebiscite decides for
separatism, there is no more to be said about the political
question*.
The economic issue is quite independent of the
political and far more dear* We saw that the Dual
Monarchy, in its present shape as a political structure,
was a negation of natural grouping imposed upon more
than half its total popubtion by force ; and that to
safeguard the peace of Europe we must allow the im-
prisoned elements to burst their artificial bands asunder,
and fundamentally reconstitute themselves on the
national basis* But we noted first of all that it had a
cogent raison JChre as an economic organisation. The
raw production of the Soutfa-Bast, the manufacture of
die NorthrWest, and the sea traffic up the Adriaric
coast, are complementary to each other; and our
political reorganisation, so far from dislocating this
352 TRIESTE AND ITALY
ecoaomic relatJon, will actually emphasise it oa a
gfaader scale. Austria-Hungary as a polidcsi geoup
will perhaps have disappeared ; but the economic ueer-
play between its sections wiU thereby extend itself to
the whole Balkan Zollverein on the one hand, aad to
the whole rehabilitated German Qnpire on the other,
and the port of Trieste will still remain the node of
this larger rhythm.
Trieste has a great future before her, and it is very
important for the prosperity of Europe to keep mi-
broken all her economic links* Whatever its political
disposition, the state of ** Sbvenia ** must remain 9n
open martet where the new Germany and the Banian
Zollverein can meet, that is, it must have foee trade
with both at once. But there is no economic oonnectioQ
between Trieste and Italy. Italian manufactnrca are
devebping along the Northern rim <rf the Po basin where
they can avail themselves of Alpine water power; but
the port of Lombardy is Genoa on the Riviera coast.
Italian industry faces Soutfa-West, and belongs to an
economic sphere in which the centre of gravity verges
towards the Mediterranean, and not towards the
Adriatic.
This is perhaps the strongest reason of all for not put-
ting Trieste into Italy^s hands. Even if the eychwkin
of the Slovene territory from the Italian tari£F-watt wttt
guaranteed as a condition of its inoorporaticm widun
her political frontier, she cotdd hardly fail to use her
political control to deflect Triestine trade in her own
interest. To abandon her daim to Trieste wiU be a
grievous disappointment to her ; but she will receive
compensation in other directions.
(i.) Though she must throw no covetous glance tqxm
Canton Tidno, which is Swiss in soul, yet farther East
TRIESTE AND ITALY aS3
the ltalian-q)eakiiig populatioti ctf the Tientino is eager
to aasert its true nationality. The rectified frontier
lienwecu Italy and the Austrian Tyn>rwould diverge
bom the present at the summit of the Ortler/ run
Eastivard akmg the Northern watershed of the Nooe
faOey, and dien South-Bast till it crossed the Adige just
Sottdi of Neumarkt. Thence it would again tal^ a
SKue Northerly direction along the Northern watershed
of the Avisio valley, and rejoin the old line again on the
siffliflut of Monte Marmolata*
(ti.) If Alsace-Lorraine elects to reunite itself with
Fnoioe, the French could well restore to Italy the
balian poptdation of Nizza, whose session was part of
the pace for French aid in 1859* '^^ tawm has a
sentiniental value for the Italian nation as the birthplace
of Garibaldi. Italy would doubtless wish to receive
Coaica as well ; but sentiment of exactly the same land
will make the French always ding to Napoleon's native
islaad, though strategically and economically it is an
unprofitable possession in spite of its size. The
Coisicans speak an Italian dialect, but they have no
feeling of national affinity with the peninsular state,
because dieir horizon has never extended beyond their
own coasts. They are a lavrfess people, still in need of
strong government firom outside ; and this the French,
with more than a century'is e^ierience, can continue
to give them much better than a new Italian administra-
tion ttntramed to the task.
(tii.) Italy's chief gain, however, will not be these
minor territorial pickings, but the undisputed naval
command of the Adriatic, for which she is at present
driven to compete with the Dual Monarchy. The
dttappeanmoe of the latter power as a political unit
>Sftiii9oap.a6o.
254 TRmSTB AND ITALY
leave the Eastern coast of this sea in less formidable
hands.
At least two of the Austrian naval bases, Sebenioo
and Cattaro, will ^ to the inheritance of the Southern
Slav Union, lAdda. will have neither the interest nor the
resources to initiate a policy of naval adventure* The
headquarters of the Austrian navy are at the fortress of
Pola, the key of the whole Northern Adriatic, iMxh
juts out into the sea on the tip of Istria, and menaces a
la^e stretch of Italian coast including Venice on the
one hand and Ancona on the other. Pola is destined
to form part of the Slovene unit, and if the latter inclines
to a guaranteed autonomy, the natural corollary to the
grant of such a status would be the razing of all fortifica-
tions within the guaranteed area. But even should
Slovenia elect to throw in her lot with the Southern
Slavs, Italy would still be quite justified in insistii^
upon the dismantling of Pola as the condition of her
consent to the loss of Trieste, while the other parties
to the conference could not deny her such a logical
compensation.
While Pola controls the bottom of the Adriatic bottle,
its neck is potentially dominated by the bay of Avlona ^
in Albania, whose future we have already sketched as
a part of transit and a railway terminus. Under the
Turkish regent its strategical possibilities were never
exploited, but in the hands of an efficient naval power it
could be converted into a position strong enough to
seal up the Adriatic, and it is obvious that it wouU
threaten Italy's vital interests if such a strategical asset
passed into the possession of any other nation than
herself.
The fall of Yannina in the Spring of 19x3, during the
'See fXap IV.
TRIESTE AND ITALY 355
ooufse of the Balkan War, brought Greek armies into
the neighbourhood. The Greek government politicly
lefinined from proceeding to the occupation of Avlona
itself, but Italy^s susceptibility with regard to the fate
of the town was so extreme that, as we have seen, she
created an international complication by insisting upon
the inclusion of Epirus, a district of Greek nationality,
in the new principality of Albania, in order to interpose a
broad zone of territory between Avlona and the new
Greek frontier. Events have already shown that the
artificial severance of Epirus from Greece cannot be
maintained against the will of both ; but since Avlona
lies beyond the Epirot border, and her Moslem Albanian
population will under no drcunostances incorporate
itself in the Greek national state, there is no reason why
any step the Epirots may take with regard to their own
destiny should involve the permanent presence of Italy
at Avlona,^ a state of things that would virtually reduce
Albania to an Italian province, and would hopelessly
compromise the ** Monroe doctrine ** which we formu-
lated for the whole Balkan region as one of the necessary
safeguards of European peace* Italy's interests can be
completely satisfied by another alternative, the perpetual
neutralisation of Avlona, tmder a guarantee, similar to
that we have proposed in the case of Pola, containing
the following provisions :
(a) Avlona shall always remain part of Albania*
(ft) It shall never be fortified, either by Albania
herself or by any la^er political group with a tmified
military organisation, of which Albania may at any time
hereafter become a member*
'la November 19x4 Italy virtuaUy occupied Avlona itaeli^ and
fofmaliy aanoooced htt ooctspatjon of Saacno, me idaad U^
the tDtianoe to tlie Bqr*
356 TRIESTE AND ITALY
The gtntfal tBtctf tfaen^ of these vsnous pfoponb
will be to leave Italy the control of the Adriatic by the
disarmament of its whole Eastern coast* Sympatfaisefs
with Italy will probably declare that this is after all a
negative gain^ and hint that a great power like Italy
cannot in the re-settlement of Btirope be treated in so
cavalier a fashion* To this we would reply that we have
taken our lead from Italy^s own policy* Her decisive
adoption of neutrality at the beginning of the present
war proved that she herself realised what was already
patent from the facts^ that she had no vital interests at
stake on the European continent*
If the ultimate reunion of Trieste had been to her not
merely a cherished object of national sentiment^ but a
necessity of life» she could not have abstained from
intervention now* In reality^ if she were to yield to
sentiment and insist on the zssignmtnt to her of Trieste
by the conference that will meet after the war, she would
deUberately be involving herself in intimate relations
with Central and South-Eastern Europe : every phase
in the policy of the great German and Balkan groups
would thenceforth seriously affect her, and she might
finally bring down upon her head the combined force
of the two groups in a concerted effort to oust her again
from the possession of a port which, thot^ of no
economic interest to herself, would be the centre in vAiiA
their own respective interests met and coincided*
The relief from naval competition in the Adriatic
would, on the contrary, be a very positive advantage to
her* Instead of the promissory notes of continental
ambitions, it would yield her ^e immediate gain of
millions of Ure struck off from her annual budget for
naval construction, and enable her at once to reduce
her naval estimates and yet spare greater facoe dian
TRIESTE AND ITALY 357
befejre for the pursuance of interests beyond the xnoutfa of
the Adriatic on which her future development depends*
Italy, like Germany, has come late into the field,
and like Germany she needs above all things to obtain
reservoirs of markets and raw materials for her growing
industry, and unea^loited spheres of activity for her
enterprise* The manufactures of Lombardy shipped
from Genoa have recently secured a destination in
Tripoli; but the war with Tturkey in ip^ch Tripoli
was won opened up the prospect of more fruitful
e^Kuision in the Levant* Italy's future beckons her
across the Mediterranean, and it will occupy otur atten-
tion again when we oome to consider the problems of
the Nearer East ; but it does not call her to Trieste, and
we can discount the Italian factor in turning our minds
once more to the relations between the ** Slovene unit '*
and its hinterland on the North*
We have now defined the ** New Austria "' still more
dosely, by detaching the Trentino and ** Slovenia '' in
the South : we have only to determine her frontier
against the latter in detail,^ before we pass on to the
consideration of her internal constitution*
We have seen that the unity of ** Slovenia ** is
primarily geographical rather tluui racial ; so that, in
settling its exact extent, while we must satisfy as far as
posttble the claims of the Slovene substratum and
majority, after which we have named the whole territory,
we must subordinate ihem in the last resort to geo-
graphical considerations* Slovenia is a junction of
economic arteries, and the disposition of these arteries
most be the decisive factor in its delimitation* We are
creating Slovenia in order to give Austria, and the whole
of Germany behind her, a £ree communication with the
Adriatic that shall pass neither through Croatian terri-
' Sec Map in*
258 TRIESTE AND ITALY
tory on the one hand nor through Italian on the other,
and there are two existing lines of railway along which
such communication can be effected :
{L) The ** Sudbahn '" from Vienna, that skirts the
Eastern flank of the Alps, passes trough the heart of
Krain at Laibach, and proceeds thence to Trieste, which
it thus links to an industrial hinterland towards the
North-East in Bohemia and Moravia*
(iiO The Tauem Railway, only opened in 1909, which
has yielded Trieste a new hinterland in Southern
Germany by giving her a direct Northward connection
through the Alps themselves*
This line, in its Southern section, skirts the present
Italian frontier, keeping just outside Italian territory.
Starting from Trieste, it runs to Gorz on the East
bank of the Isonzo, crosses the river, follows up
its West bank to the junction of the Idria stream,
and then penetrates by a tunnel into the upper valley
of the Save, crosses this river too, and next pierces the
Karawanken mountains by another tunnel, to emerge
on the Drave at Villach* Hence the Tauem tunnel,
the biggest engineering feat on the line, carries it
through the main chain of the Alps into the Danube
lowlands, which it enters at Salzburg. It is clear that
this railway sets a limit to the advance of Italy^s Eastern
frontier against Slovenia* All that we can give Italy here
is a tiny strip of territory on the West bank of the Isonzo
below GSfZ, where the population is Italian in nation-
ality, and which possesses a sentimental importance as
containing the little towns of Aquileia and Grado, with
their beautiful cathedrals and their splendid ecclesiastical
memories so closely bound up with Italian history*
The North-Westem extension of Slovenia in turn is
limited by the trunk line from Vienna to Italy, which
TRIESTE AND ITALY 359
passes by Leoben up the valley of the Mur, crosses into
the Drave valley at Villach, and proceeds thence into
the T^^liamento basin at Tarvis* It is equally dear
that this line must run entirely through Austrian and
Italian territory, and pass outside Slovenia altogether*
This further suggests the limits of Slovenia on the
North* The Slovene population overflows the water-
shed between Save and Drave, and occupies the whole
Southern bank of the latter river along its upper course,
even passing beyond it in places; but the Northern
bank is predominantly German, the towns, such as
Klagenfurt and Marburg, being completely German in
diaracter, and the whole valley forms an indivisible
geographical unity, which is linked by its railway con-
nections with the German mass towards the North
rather than with the Slovene mass towards the South*
Slovenia must therefore abandon her frontiersmen in
die Drave valley to Austria, and accept the Southern
watershed of that river as her Northern limit*
We are now in a position to designate the whole
frontier between Slovenia and Austria* It should start
from the present Italian frontier at Mount Kanin (thus
leaving the railway junction of Tarvis within Austrian
territory as before), and follow the Southern boundary
of Karinthia along the Karawanken mountains till it
reaches the point where the Karinthian boundary turns
North* Here it should part from the latter, and con-
tinue the Easterly direction of the Karawanken range,
cutting through Styria till it reaches the Bacher moun-
tains on a line that leaves Windischgratz and St*
Leonhard to Austria* Thence it should turn South-
East, run along the watershed between the Sann and
Drann systems over the Cilli-Marburg railway ttmnel
to the Wotsche motmtains, and then follow their summit
till it hits the frontier of Croatia*
afe
TRIESTE AND ITALY
Thif is a rot^ attempt to sift Slovene from Gennan
along a line corresponding mdi geographical struc-
ture, and it will succeed approximately in shaking
German Austria free from her Slavoiic accretims en
the Southern side. But the Austria that is left, thou^
now a compact geographical unit, has a last and most
bitter national problem buried in her heart ; she has still
to settle her relatitms with du Tchechs. \
TCHECH AND GERMAN afii
CHAPTER VI
TCHECH AND GERMAN IN THE NEW AUSTRIA
BoHEHXA is a foux^^quare block of primitive mountains,
the relic of a Europe older than the folding of the Alps
and Carpathians* Like the Baltic plain and the Danube
valley North and South of it, it was occupied in the
Dark Ages by the Slavs in their Westward su^*
About 1000 AJ>« the Germans, e3q>anding with the
inq)etus of civilisation, bq;an to roll the tide back*
Meissen and Brandenburg, the Saxon marches, turned
the Bohemian Slavs' flank on the one hand, the
Bavarians pushed their settlements down the Danube
to build Austria on the other, and when, during
the thirteenth century, Silesia, the province of the
Upper Oder, was cut away from the body of Poland
and Germanised by settlers from the North-West,
Bohemia was isolated on the East as well, and Germans
bom Vienna, pressing up the Right bank of the March
River, almost joined hands with Germans from Breslau
through the Moravian gap*^ Even the thickly-forested
mountain-dykes did not keep out the flood, and a
German population oozed far into the interior of
Bohemia on the West and North*
But Geography still saved the native Slavs from
destruction* Their mountain-shelter gave them time
to adopt from the Germans the armament of Latin
civilisation by which they were beit^ conquered, and
the Kingdom of the Tchechs began to hold its ovm as
a recognised, independent member in the family of
' Sm Map II.
369 TCHECH AND GERMAN
Western Christendom. In die fourteenth century its
ruler, Charles of Luzembourg, attained the (by this time
shadowy) dignity of Holy Roman Emperor, and his
Slavonic capital Prag became for a generation the
pohtical focus of Central Europe.
The cosmopolitan university of Prag, founded in 1348
and organised in four " nations," whidi was Charles'
most enduring legacy to the country, linked it still
closer to the great world, and wandering students from
England sowed seeds of Wyclifs ideas from which
sprang two leaders of European importance, John Huss
and Jerome of Prag, the fore-runners of the Refbmu-
tum. They were both burnt at the Council of Constanz
in 1415, but their followers took up arms for the rights
of the Laity against the Cleigy, and repelled the crusades
of all Catholic Europe.
In this democraric uprising, half a universal ttiiffovs
movement, half a local revolt of the peasant against his
brd, the Tchech nation found itself and defied the
world. But the glory of the Hussites was brief. They
were ruined, not by the power of the Roman Church,
but by the bitterness of their own internal factions. In
1436 the moderate " Utraquists " crushed the fanatical
" T^x>rites," who were the really vital element in the
movement, and proceeded to make a concordat widi
Rome, in which they abandoned their actually achieved
religious independence in return for a formal acknow-
ledgment of the Laity's right to communicate in both
kinds, the empty claim enshrined in the party's title>
The star of Huss had set before Luther's sun rose : in
the seventeenth century, while the Dutch were assert-
ing their national independence against the Hapsburg
dynasty, the Tchechs fell under its autocratic rule, and
have never extricated themselves since; but ttaditioii
1
TCHECH AND GERMAN 363
Kved on, and fed the flame of nationalism, which the
nineteenth century kindled in the Tchechs as in all other
European populations, to a white heat*
No settlement of Austria is worth considering that
does not satisfy the Tchechs' aspirations, but their
daims are likely to be eactravagant* At first they will
probably demand the erection of the two provinces,
Bohemia and Moravia, where they form the preponderant
element of the rural population, and the substratum
of the urban masses, into a completely independent
national state* It would be a dose parallel to this claim
if the Irish Nationalists proposed the complete separa-
tion of the whole island from the British Empire and
the absolute supremacy in the new state of the Catholic
popttIatk>n; except that to the Tchechs' programme
the objections are graver still.
(i.) In whole districts along the borders there is a solid
German population, and a German element has estab-
lished itself permanently in most of the towns, especially
in the more accessible province of Moravia*^ In the
streets of Prag, riots between Tchech and German mobs
often lead to bloodshed ; and the present war, in which
the Austrian government has forced the Tchech con-
scripts to fight against their Slavonic brethren, the
Russians, and shot them down when they hesitated to
obey, will have immeasurably embittered the race-
hatred* This German minority cannot be abandoned
to Tchech nationalism, enjoying power for the first
time, and schooled, as a victim, in Austrian methods of
using it*
Tefuchs. Gtrmans.
. 4»xo7/)oo (65%) 3^1X1000(35%)
. x,738/)oo (71%) 679/)oo&8%)
Totil pop. of both*^ 5»845iOoo (68%) a^Sgo/xx) (31.5%)
a64 TCHBCH AND GERMAN
(ii.) Bohetntt and Mofavia are great manu&cturti^
and mining diBtricCs, depending for dietr ptoeperity on
gcxxi oommunication with markets.^ If they separate
diemaehes politically from the New Germany, diey put
it in her power to build a tariff wall against ^em vAdA
will cttt them off from the oiftn world* Hie interior (rf
the Bohemian bastion is drained by the upper system of
ibtWbt, and its trade is tendmg more and more to flow
down with the river to Hamburg throiqli the gorge
?dieie it breaks the Brt-gebirge ; iwdiile the arteries of
Moravia focus at V^nna, where the Austrian tmsk Hot
starts for Trieste* In both difectk>ns exit and entrance
can only be made dirous^ German territory*
(iii.) The Tcheds possess a third door to the East,
of which Germany does not own die thresfai^, the
Moravian gap that leads to Roland* But none of their
trade pmses in diat direction to the vast Russian marisets
diat lie beyond, because these are already monc^iolised
by the important Polish manu&ctttrmg districts that
intervene, and the Polish Blad[ Country and the Russian
cofttkAxods form a closed economic system of their own.
On die old political scale, then, Gec^praphy decreed
* 1 iMse mo pfofiBCcs are tn net me ccinve ok suticj oi Auwmn
Mosstfyv bt oOTnimncips DOCB ijoiver aimimi taa on^En n lav
wittt^fiy activity ifld tlmr tBitilc fimwinictun^ wiule tiie pfovinotf
SoUllHWCSt OK VlCtlMy the SlJQflSBOlds of pUfC CjCflllAB iMitionAfy»
lit Mtnde the BmIboi Mctioa of the Alp^ and aie
economicaWy bv their geogr^ihical diaiacter. A flompaiia'vc
popwlatiom (taken €rmii the teiimi of 1900) will flMke tUs dear :
^^'^^'"'* . ^x%OQO Lower Aiotna . . j^zoo/xx)
Moravia af^J«ooo Styrb^ . z^j6/)00
OoZa
iZfOoo Cifinthia ... ^d/jMV
— — "— ijnii \iiiiniuim me
»4S4/MM» If alimi nf theTitatiBP) gSo^ooo
SnsNBS • > • r^Si'BSO
t^perAMtfia . Oie^ooo
rCMECH AND (GERMAN a^
dial tiie Tdbcchs should be a nation : on ihc newMonmnic
scak it has brigaded them inexorably vvith the Gemua
group* But though her common frontier with the
Russian BmfAxe would give an independent Tchccii
state no economic advanta^e^ it would have political
effects most dangerous to the peace of Europe* The
iarritable persecution of the German minority by the
Tdiecfa nationalists would provoke economic retaliatioa
from the German Empire, and the Tchechs would dien
ask for the intervention of Russia in a fit of Panslav
pasBton« The Bohemian bastion is the strategic key
to the New Germany/ and Russia could throw as many
troops into it as she pleased through the Moravian gap,
whidif though it woukl be strategically Germany^s most
Vtthierable spot, woukl be entirely out of Gmnany's
military control. Such a situation would be intoleraUe
to Germany* She would have to insure herself against
its oocurrence by a system of alliances like those till now
in vogue, and the re^t would be another tmiveisal war*
An independent Tchech state, then, would be against
the uhimate interest of the Tchechs themselves (for
neither the German boycott nor the Rtissian suzerainty
that broke it wouki please them), and against the direct
interest of all Etuope* On the other hand, if the
Tdiecfas are to enter, as a tiny minority, the vast cor-
pQfatkm of the new German Empire, ihtir natk>naltty
will have to be safeguarded energetically, and they will
pBobibly propose in the second place that Bcrfiemia-
Kloravia enter the German Empire as an individual tmit,
a femth member by the side of the North, the South,
and Austria, with a special international guarantee
beiiind her*
^BfaaaxdL once said that the mtlitafy pofwar which ooatroltod
BoboDtt oontfoUed Europe.
~1
a66 TCHECH AND GERMAN
Guaiantees to a weaker partner that outsiders will
iq)hold his interests are a poor alternative to a c^Mcity
for tqjholding them himself, and they gall the stronger
partner, whose free action they limit and whose honesty
they put in doubt. They are an occasion for bicteings,
and we had better do without them if we can. A
guarantee can perhaps be avoided in this case by Uttiiig
the whole of Austria, within the limits to whidi we
have reduced her, enter the German Empire as a single
unit,^ on condition that she grants Home Rule within
this district to the whole Tchech nationality. The
Tchechs, possessing more than a third* of the total
population and equipped with national self-government,
would easily hold their own within the Austrian state,
and the whole Austrian unit, representing proportioa-
ately the interests of all its components, would hold its
own in turn within the German Empire.
By such an arrangement the Tchedi tutionality
would assert itself through co-operation with the
German neighbour, and not by making war on him,
and two farther advantages wiU appear when the
formula is worked out in practice.
(i.) The existing pohtical machinery will suffer the
minimum amount of disturbance. In the Crown-lands
Parliament which at present sits at Vienna, representa-
tives elected by manhood suffiage from pc^nilalioos
speaking half a dozen different languages, have nude
' To whkh " North Germany," for comractoen' sake, migtat cede
tht fragment of Silesia, which our propaaed Polish frontier woud knc
bcr bejbnd the Rigbt bank of the HgtzenplBtt stream.
* Rcckonm^ by ptoviaces on the boss of tbe bat ccnun {19)0) iht
total population i» our "Reduced Austria" will be about sintts
millions ; while in the same year there were 5,953,000 TdicdK nd
9,173,000 Germans in tbe whole Austrian Crown-bnda, all of whoa
Will remain, acrordine to the preaent scheme, within die Au9>iix>
uni^ though practicalqr all populationa of other nationality will biK
been deladbed from it.
TCHECH AND GERMAN
TJSq
the efifort to do legislative work together^ and in spite of
scenes that the tension of the racial atmosphere almost
excuses, have begun to acquire the constitutional habit*
It would be a pity if Germans and Tchechs (the other
nationalities will have simplified the situation by
dropping out) should deprive themselves of this field
for collaboration and mutual understanding*^
(ii*) The pattern for Tchech Home Rule already
exists in the Constitution of the Austrian Crown-lands,
under induch the several provinces, besides being
represented in the Vienna parliament, enjoy a modicum
of local self-government under diets of their own*'
This system, and the present British government's bill
for Home Rtile in Catholic Ireland, would be good
precedents for the scope of the new Tchech parliament
to be established at Prag* As in Ireland, the chief
difficulty will lie in settling, not the powers to be
del^^ated, but the geographical limits within which
they are to be operative ; and this problem brings out
the most decisive advantage of the scheme for Home
> The following table shows the ctspectivc strengths of the di£Bereiit
aatiooalities within the Atsstrian Crown-hnds, accordiiig to the census
of zgoo, and the number of seats assigned respectively to each nation-
aiity in the parliament at Vienna by the electoral law which mtxoduoed
Miuhood Su£Erage in 1906.
Soitdiem Slavs
Populotun*
RtpnswicBtifHU
9,z7a/)oo
a33-xs 39r365
5/955.000
108-1: 55«3
3,a8a,ooo
80-1: !B#X50
34-X5 9M7X
z,Z93/)oo I
7zi«ooo i
37-x: 5M59
TTTJfiOO
X9-x: 38;^
7i5/)oo
5-1 : X43/»o
Total . . a6,i07,ooo 516
The representation of certain nationalities is thus still very te
from being proportioiial to dieir real numbers*
* GaUcta nas secured more complete Home Rule than any other
i
268 TCHECM AND GERMAN
Rule vnAin Austria as against separate membetship
in the German Empire*
In the latter case just as much as if she became a
completely independent state^ Bohemia-Moravia wDold
have to be organised as a compact gec^^raphical unit,
so that the German minority in the country would in
both cases be forced to take its government from Prag,
and would need an external guarantee against the
Tchechs of just the same kind as the Tchedis them-
selves would be requiring gainst the whole German
nation. But in the event of Home Rule within a united
Austria, the total population, Tchech and German
alike, would be represented in the Vienna parliament
already; the plebiscite to ascertain what sections wuhed
to avail themselves, in addition, of the proffered devolu-
tion, could be taken parish by parish ; and the area
the Tchech Nationalist administration should control
from Prag could be determined to a nicety by its
result**
We can, in fact, state the general principle that the
less absolute the sovereignty, that is, the power of
uncontrolled, irresponsible action, demanded by any
»
^ The materials for dcawtng out the map of the Tchech Home Ruk
area aie akcady to hand, m the electoral districtB constituted in 1906
for the Austnan Central Parliameat. Some distrkti are purely Tchedi
in poptifaifion and return only Tchech deputies : dicse would oettajoly
chooR Home Rule« Others contain a miied popfulation of Tcfaeds
and Getmansy and are organised in two constituencies of identical tool
cjrtent but d^erent nationality, each provided with its own register of
voters and returning its own national candidate to parliament: the
fatte of these would be decided by whichever natiofiality was in the
ni^onty* The Tchech constituency, if its register contained more voces
tfatti the German constituency fat the same area, would outvote the
latter in favour of devolution for die area in question, while the Gcmufl
constituency in ^ opposite case would retain the area for centraltsatioa ;
but of course every racial constituency, those whidi fell witlun the
Home Rule area and those which remained outside it alfte, would
continue to smd representatives to the general parliament at Vieiuia
00 the same esoellent system as before*
TCHBCH AND GERMAN ^69
gjvcn political group^ the more exactly we can draw its
firontiefs in harmony with the national feelings of the
k)cal populations; while the more complete the
independence it demands^ the more we shall be com-
pelled to sacrifice the wishes of minorities to considera-
tions of administrative^ economic and even of strategical
geography. But it is not yet time to discuss the con-
chisions to which this will lead us* We have so far
surveyed only the first of our main problems, namely,
irfiat gains and losses an honest relayix^ of national
feondations will bring to Germany^ and before we
turn our attention elsewhere, we will attempt to give a
ckar summary of our present results*
(u) We have detached from Germany the following
populations, estimated at maximum figures, on the basis
of the census taken in 1905 :
AhaefLoataat . 1,8x5^000 i^upjfomDg that tfaa whole of tht
RadHlaad elects to sepifate
itself fRxn Germsfiy*)
Schleswig 0oo/xx> (AppfOKunate csttmate to include
both die X99fOoo Danes and the
.)
aodW.ftasBa . 3/Mfioo (Atwimfng that all Poles subfect to
Gefmany are detached from her,
tfaoup^ we have actualh^ left
*^*^*?f*^ffabtf iiMWffititi in oJIwia
and W. Pkusna.)
Total detadied 5iaox/xx>
(ii.) In compensation we have added to Germany a
reduced Austria with a population (on the basis of the
census taken in 2900) of approximately 16,000,000.
We have ultimately, there£Dre, increased the popula-
tion of the whole German Empire, which numbered
6o,64Z/x>o in 1905, by 20,799,000, raising it to a total
of 7i|44o,ooo> Statisticians calculate that the popula-
ayo TCHECH AND GERMAN
tion of Germany, within its present limits, has risen in
the interval since 2905 to 65/)oo,ooo, an increase of
7*5 per cent*: if we add this percentage to our total for
the United Germany,^ we shall find that the popula-
tion of the new German Empire within the proposed
frontiers would amount at the present moment to no
less than 76,798,000 souls, distributed into the following
groups :
n
(a) North Germany . 46,50X1000 (Of ^idioin * 36,i3S/xk> would
formerly have faciooged Ip the
prcaeot ktogdom of Prussia*)
South Germany . 13,0971000 *
7) Austria 17,900,000 (Including about io^ao/x» Ger-
mans and 6,88p»iooo Tchecfas.)
Total T^/J^fi^^
If, at the Conference which will meet at the end of this
war to attempt, like the Vienna G>ngress a century ago,
the lasting settlement of Europe, we could succ^ in
reconstituting the German Empire on some such lines
* The rate of increase among the added Austrian populatioo is
certainly lower than the average within the present limits of Gcmiasy;
but on the other hand the Geiman census was only taken in tgof, wmte
the census on which our figures for Austria are based was tuen five
years
* pop. of Prussia \ .^ i total of SdUmwigtrs
in 1905 f \and PoUs in 2905
37/)oo/)oo X '^^ -. 3,38^,000 X ^^ . 36,i35/)oo.
'Bavaria 6,534*000
Wurtemberg a,3oa/xx>
Baden 2tOiifioo
Hessen (the Southern block only) 9x3,000
Frankfurt ^ ^ 3B4>iooo
Other territories detadied fRrni Prussia 00
either side of Frankfort .... xoo/)oo
Total (by census of 1905) Z3,z^/x» x -^
■■ X3/)97/>oo.
TCHECH AND GERMAN 271
2s these, we should have accomplished most of the
objects with which we started this discussion, and
avoided most of the dangers vihich we saw ahead of us*
We should have relaid the foundations of Nationality
in Alsace-Lorraine, Schlesw^ and Poland, where
Prussian policy has deliberately broken them up, and
we should have restored the superstructure of European
peace endangered thereby for many years and now
finally shattered ; yet by honourably applying the
principle of Nationality to Germany's advantage as well
as to her detriment, we should have left her with a
considerably larger territory and population than she
possessed before this war* This just aggrandisement
would primarily benefit Germany herself, but ulti-
mately it would further the best interests of all Europe,
because it would be more likely than any other measure
to produce that change in German public opinion whidi
is the only possible keystone of peace in the future*
ff Prussian militarism be refuted by the issue of this
war, the German nation will assuredly be alienated from
the Prussian system for ever, unless either or both of
two consequences follow : eidier the humiliation of the||
national honour, or such a rearrangement of frontierslj
as would leave Germany at the mercy of her neighbourship
and reduce her to a state of permanent fear*
Were the G>nference to create such a situation as this,
the German nation would be thrown into the arms of
Pnissianism, and would serve its unsympathetic ideals
with greater enthusiasm than it has ever yet lavished
upon them* But if the settlement takes the line of our
proposals, both these consequences will be avoided*
The German Empire will emerge more majestic and
less vulnerable than before* The element that is not
Prussian, but is Germany's true soul, will regain free
873 TCHBCH AND GBIOCAN
flfav* take the lead in the natioii's life ivhidi it held till
] BJemarck wxested it away ^ and swamp Prmwiantim not
merely by the greater vteality of its ideas, but even by
the weight of superior numbers*
j We can readily discern the policy ^Niiuch the New
Germany will fc^ow* Her first tadc wifl be the re-
building of that magnificent commerce and industry
which it took forty-three years to conjure up, and ooe
season's campaign to spirit away again* She will have
a bitter moment when she gazes at its ruins, but her
emotion will be regret and not despair* Our setdemeiit
offers her once more the promise of a great economic
future* Hamburg, Danzig and Trieste will be secured
to her as open doors for her commerce, and motual
interests will bring her to an understanding with the
Balkan ZoUverein, more stable and of wider effect than
Ae present precarious customs-uaion between the tm
halves of the Dual Monarchy* This labour of good
1 hope will occupy the New Germany's best energies for
I many years to come*
PANSLAVISM 373
CHAPTER VII
PANSLAVISM, OR GERMANY'S FEARS
Wi have now cosq>kt6d half our task^ the reconstruction
of Central and South-Eastem Europe* We concluded
the last chaq>ter with a summary of our results. A
leca^tulation of the steps by which we reached them
will be the best introduction to the problems that still
lie before us*
(L) The first necessity of primitive societies is ** Strong
Government,'^ external to the govemedt because they
have no organic lirJcs with one another in themselves*
(IL) Within this chrysalis of mechanical union, a
natural, oq;anic unity grows up between the governed
among themselves, expressing itself through diverse
common factors: language^ geography, religion,
tradition*
(IIL) It is a necessary phase of political growth that
diis common self-consciousness or Nationality should
become the principle of political structure, and the
self-government of natural human groups replace the
arbitrary grouping of ** Strong Government '" as the
ideal of the State*
(TV*) This ideal of self-governing national states with
natural frontiers (frontiers, that is, whose sanction is not
external force, but the respective common desires of the
pqwilafions on either side of them) has been realised in
the West of Europe so thoroughly that the national
states so formed have been able to turn all their energies
to new phases of development based on this achievement*
(a) All of them (Holland, Belgium, England, France,
a74 PANSLAVISM
Spain, Portt^) have expanded over the less civilised
parts of the Earth, and have divided between them both
the regions producing the best tropical raw materials,
and the temperate regions outside Europe best suited to
European colonisation.
(6) Two of them, France and England, have become
" Great Powers " by leading the way m the " Industrial
Revolution " which has transformed the environment ctf
human civilisation ; and they are now with all their
energies and with increasing success adapting themselves
to these new conditions.
(V.) In Central Europe, on the other hand, owing to a
less favourable start in civilisation and to subsequent
misfortunes, Nationality did not assert itself till z866-
1870, and then only by a compromise with " Strong
Government " typified in the policy of Bismarck. This
has caused several serious flaws in development here as
contrasted with the West :
(a) Only two nationalities, the German and die
Magyar, have here attained self-government, and diey
have been usit^ it ever since (foUowing " Strong
Government " tradition), to maim and stunt the develop-
ment of weaker nationalities behindhand in the race :
Frenchmen of Lorraine and Alsatians, Danes of
Schlesw^ Poles, Tdiechs, Italian Trentini, and
Southern Slavs.
(6) They have also entered with vigour the " post-
nationalist " phase of expansion and Industrialism, but
here they have been handicapped by coming late in the
race themselves, as compared with the Western poweis,
who have already " inherited the Earth."
(c) Germany is bitterly conscious that she has not
found for herself " a place in the Stm," but in order
to win it she has not concentrated all her efforts vpon
\
PANSLAVISM vn
eoonomic and social oonstruction, though this is the
nonnal activity of the present phase of Eutopean
civilisation* During the last forty-three years she has
displayed amaring ability in this direction, and already
won for herself a very large niche at the expense of her
rivals in the field, and to their advantage as well, for
the whole world in the industrial phase profits by the
success of any one member of it* Nevertheless, she has
chosen to foster her Militarism, the obsolete weapon
of ** Strong Government,'" which Bismarck partially
adapted to the solution of the national problem, but
iidiich is entirely unadaptable to the conquest of
industrial supremacy*
(VI*) The present war is Germany's attempt to ** hack
her way through'' the Western nations to the best
'' place in the Sun," by military force* The best com-
mentary on her action are the results she hopes to
achieve by it*
(a) She hopes to annex Belgium, and possibly to force
Holland into a disadvantageous zoUverein, in order that
she may have more convenient ports for her industrial
districts in Westphalia and the Rhineland ; and so to
break the power of France that she may cease to be
an independent factor in European politics* If she
succeeds in this, she will have reduced the West to a
diaos of ** robbery under arms " such as it has not
known since the ** Hundred Years' War " and the career
of Charles the Bold, and have swept away the work of
four centuries, not merely the ** national self-govern-
ment " inaugurated by the English and French revolu-
tions, but even the preliminary ** national consolidation **
accomplished by Louis XI* and Henry VII*
(6) She threatens to seize the transmarine possessions
of aU the Western nations alike, great powers and small.
396 PANSLAVISM
btUigcmUs and neutrals. The attitude of Votta^
and Spain i1io«b wbat tiiey fear. This would desoojr
the whole vigorous oolomal development of the nine-
teenth century, triiidi only began after die resuk of dw
Napoleonic wan had definitively settled the ownenfaip
of these tcrritoiies.
(VII.) We may birly awdude that in this piratical
atta^ Germany stands for reactiott to a crude idui
that European Gvilisation has consciously transcended,
vrbiic the Western powers that are defending diemselves
^^ainat hex represent the new activities by which
European Civilisation is opening a better diapter. In
diis stn^gle, therefore, it is the Worid's vital interest
that Getmany should fail.
We have reached these propositions through a survey
of the facts, starting for fairness' salie with the fact that
is at once the most important of all and the most di£B-
culc for us to appreciate jusdy: Germany's attitude
towards her own ambitions. But we found tiut " tout
conqucndxe, c'est unit pardonner peut-ttre, mais oe
n'est point tout petmettte ; " and we made up our minds
that we must refute German force by force, in order that
we may bring it into our power to reoi^janise the political
structure of Central Europe on the basis of the West,
instead of sufFerii^ the West to succumb to the level
of the centre. We have therefore approached the tadc
of leoomtruction on a national basis, and painfully
striven to right the injustices the German system has
perpetuated from Alsaoe-Lorraine to the Westen
frontier of Poland and from Schleswig to Macedonia.
But we have also recognised that this recasting of
Europe, based though it be on the living will of popula-
tions, has no virtue in itself, and that it is merely the
\
PANSLAVISM 377
pcduninary oondition for a change of hearty the sole
e&ctnre cuie of the evil* Our objective is to convert
the German nation from the Prussian idea to otir own,
and we can only do this by first crushing their hopes
of military victory, and then convincing them that we
are striving for a settlement on impartial lines* We
have to show them that we find our own interest in tht
peaceful industrial development of all the nations,
Germany included, side by side with ourselves*
If we have taken all the factors into considexalmn, we
ous^t to succeed in this, but we have not yet con-
skteted them all* Germany is at war not merely with
Eoi^aiid, Fiance and Belgium, but widi Russia, and
if we tie concerned with the German nation^s psydbo-
logy, here is die factor that dominates its pmseat
disposition*
At this moment the German nation is as tmited in
feelii^ as otur own, and every individual in it as prepared
tomake the ^Ktreme sacrifice for the tiattfinal cause*
People do not rise to this temper for a cause whidi
they know to be bad in dieir own hearts, and which
they aie aware the public opinion of the World will
oondenm* Such a cause may be the tihimarr or pre-
ponderant object for which they are fig^uing: ihey
may dehl>ecately have been concentrating all their
satkmal energies upon it for years : but in the supreme
stress it will not inspire them* The Bulgarians lost the
aeoottd Balkan War because in a bad cause their qiirit
fttled them* If the nation ruies to the occasion never-
theless, as the Germans are doing now, it wiH be
heoauoe they are looking at the atrugs^ xd fones in
y/Adch they are engaged from a wholly di£Ferent point
df view*
The Germans aie -noc flo^ nwnking of ambitiOBS to
278 PANSLAVISM
be realised at the expense of the Western nations,
although that is the real issue at stake. The conscious
idea that spuis them is substantially identical with the
conviction that governs our own minds. Hiey feel
themselves to be the champions of European civilisation,
" whose cause Great Britain has basely betrayed,"
against the many^headed hydra of Panslavism, " whom
envy has moved Great Britain to aid." For them
Russia is the principal and we are merely her seconds :
German defeat spells the abasement of civilised Europe
beneath the barbarous Russian idea.
The whole policy of Prussianism, which we have
weighed and found wanting, transforms itself to German
eyes under this l^ht.' If Germany is attacking tlie
Western nations, it is because they have sold their
birthright, and the champion of civilisation must exact
from them the power and wealth they have prostituted
to make it bear fruit again in civilisation's cause. U
Magyardom persecutes the Slovaks, and the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs at Vienna ruthlessly represses
Southern Slav nationality, it is because these are new
heads of tibe hydra reared suddenly from an unexpected
quarter, and must be crushed bdTore the vaster fangs
of Russia have time to fasten upon the German world
from the other flanks If German policy maitifaing the
scandalous mi^;ovemment of the Turk^ Empire over
large alien populations, it is not simply in order to coax
a market for German enterprise, but to close the Russian
monster's Southern sally-port. We can understand
Germany's frame of mind most easily from this last
instance, for if we had not kept the same dii^^oeful
> Thti, of cooTK, expUini why the officul Tusti&catioa of dieii actioa
publiAcd by the German govenimeat aftet the aUamophc had
happened, bean the title " How Rtnda made the Wv."
^
PANSLAVISM 379
guard over Turkey all through the nineteentfa century^
Genoany would not have been able to relieve us of it
in the twentieth.
The arguments with which we defended our conduct
then read like first drafts of the German arguments now :
'"Russians expansion threatens our position in India,
where our rule stands for civilisation and progress and
where Russian conquest would bring darkness and
reaction* The most vulnerable point in otu: position is
our line of oommtmications through the Mediterranean,
which is at present screened from Russia by Turkey*
It will be laid bare to her if Turkey collapses* We must
therefore bolster up the ' integrity of Tturkey/ and
if the Berlin Treaty brings a generation more of
misery to the Balkans, only to be terminated by a
bloody war, that does not weigh in the balance against
the harvest of civilisation that the respite, perhaps
permanent, will have enabled India to reap*''
We pass our verdict on this argument in the shame
with which we recall it* The lacquer of idealism,
deposited upon it by a school of Victorian statesmen
with such good faith, has worn away, and we can see
the base metal of unenlightened self-seeking beneath*
Our own error in the past will help us both to excuse
and to correct the strongest and most conscious element
in Germany's feeling at the present*
We must come to grips with Panslavism* Germany's
fear of it is a psychological fact* In her belief she has
been driven by deadly peril to put her whole fortune
to the touch* In the light of our own attitude towards
Russia, which we began to abandon less than a dozen
years ago> this creates a presumption dut some real
fulcrum exists to sustain such an immense spiritual
leverage, and if Germany's presentment of the Russian
aSo PANSLAVISM
aatjooal duumcttr is trtie, all ottr hbeturs will have been
of no avail* England and Fiance may be ^dis-
interested/" and Germany may oome to believe it;
but it is no use bringing Nationality iinto its own in
Central Euiope, and preserving it in the West, if West
and Centre alike are thereby delivered over to be ^
prey of Russian militaristic ambitions as bad as, or wofse
than, those we are now combatting in Germany*
If the Allies win this war, Russia will probably have a
more decisive voice than any of us in the European
setdement that must follow* It is our imperative task,
therefore, to analyse those forces immanent m the
Russian Empire, which may so gready modify the
realisation of our own intentions, and the remainder of
this book will be devoted to dififerent aspects of the
same question* In Eastern as in Central Europe, we
will approach our problem from the standpoint of
Nationality*
THE RISORGIMBNTO OF POLAND aSi
CHAPTER Vin
RUSSIAN mPERIAUSH AND NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT
A* The Risargimtnto of Pdand
The last chapter left on our hands the question :
What will be the attitude of a victorious Russia towards
the National princq;>le in Europe i Will she respect it
or will she trample upon it i
The German conceives ** Panslavism *' as a vast
conspiracy on Russians part, in which the minor Slav
nationalities are her tools, and the domination of Europe
her object* He will argue that it is simply a specious
name for ** Pan-Russianism/* The Russian will pro-
bably ezdaim that the very meaning of the word is
sufficient vindication of his honest intentions* ** The
only Panslavism,** he will say, ** that the Russian People
has ever taken to heart, is die impulse to release any
and every Slav population in Europe from alien oppres-
sion, precisely in order that each may work out for itself
its own national salvation ; ** and he will point out that
Russia has committed herself to a lif e-and-death struggle
at Serbians call* But the German will return to the
charge, and, waiving for the moment the case of Serbia,
will put die Russian to silence by the mention of the
Poles*
** U Russia is the leading Slav nation, Poland is die
second : indeed, she may claim priority over her more
badEward Easterly neighbours as a focus of Slavonic
culture* Yet while Russia has been preachif^ Pan-
slavism in BohiCTnia and the Balkans, she has been
I
a82 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
persistently endeavouring to blot out &om the roll of
nations the noblest member of the Slavonic brotherhood.
It is irrelevant that we Germans have aided and abetted
her Polish pohcy. We are not now concerned to dis-
poove our own gaUt, but only to demonstrate that
Russia's is at least as great as ours. The history of
Russia's past relations with Poland does not augur well
foi: the sincerity of her new homage to the National
Idea. Woe to any nationality in Europe which refuses
to subordinate its destiny to the destiny of Russiat H
Russia emerges omnipotent from this war."
This formidable retort offeis us a definite field for
our disputation. In our second chapter we saw that
Germany's action during the present war is transform-
ing the feeling between Russian and Pole with almost
miraculous completeness, so that, when the re-settle-
ment of Europe is made, the Pol^ nation will almost
certainly be prepared to accept its resuiration as a gift
&om the Tsar, and try to realise its aspirations as ao
autonomous member of the Russian Empire. But
stich a compact demands good faith from both parties,
and the autonomy of Poland will indeed put Russia's
to ibt test. It may be a piece of Utopianism, and the
Grand DuIk's manifesto simply the vow extorted &om
the sinner by the menace of God's thunderbolt : in diat
case the suppression of Poland on the morrow of the
settlement might well herald the successive ruin of
the other European nations : or Russia may really
abide by her word, and respect Poland's new-found
liberty.
The latter event would serve as an immediate
guarantee of Russia's good intentions towards the
nationalities less closely involved with her and situated
altogether outside her pohtical and economic frontiers ;
\
THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND 283
but it vrotUd also have a momentous effect upon the
mtemal structure of the Russian Empire itself* The
kaven of Liberalism would not confine itself to Poland*
It would steadily penetrate the whole lump, and
produce a Russia that might lead the van of European
civilisation, instead of straggling in its rear*
We must discover, then, whether Polish and Russian
Nationalism are indeed capable of reconciliation* We
will begin by attempting to acquaint ourselves with the
Polish point of view*
The history of Polish Nationality really begins with
the partition^ of the old Polish Empire during the
last generation of the eighteenth century by the three
vulture powers, Russia, Prussia and Austria, which had
established themselves on its flanks*
Their work was not so gross a crime as it is often
painted* Vultures devour carrion, never living area*
tures; and the disappearance of the Polish state was
the old story, a long-accepted commonplace further
West, of efficient ** strong government *' imposing law
and order by force upon a society in chaos*
The Empire yoked together diverse nationalities and
national fragments* Its nucleus was the union of two
Catholic popubtions, the Poles on the Vistula and the
Lithuanians North-East of them, between the Niemen
and the Duna* They were linked first in 1386 by the
acceptance of a common dynasty, and were subse-
quently fused into a single constitutional kingdom by
die Act of Lublin in 1569. From that date the strong
monarchy gradually degenerated into an inept oligarchic
republic* The Polo-Lithuanian noble caste was
paralysed by family feuds, and more inclined, when its
^ In diree stages : 1773^ 1793, 1795.
a84 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
members met in diet moimted and armed, to relieve ks
feelings in bloodshed than to carry on the business of
government*
If the Polish nobility had reduced merely their own
country to anarchy, it would have been bad enough;
but they were visiting their incompetence upon large
alien populations as well, and the eighteenth-century
Partitions, while they opened the Polish national
question, dosed once and for all several others of long
standing.
(u) In the fourteenth century, after the Mongol
invasion had shattered Russia into fragments, Poland
and Lithuania incorporated by conquest vast districts
stretching South-Eastward into the Cossack steppes
towards the Black Sea* The population of all this
region was Russian by language, creed and tradition.
It induded the White Russians, who lay North of the
Pripet marshes, and were hardly distinguishable from
the Muscovites in dialect, and the Ruthenes or Little
Russians, extending South and South-East of them from
the Carpathian mountains to Kieff half-way down the
course of the Dniepr* The eighteenth-century parti-
tions retmited these peoples with the national Russian
state, except for a Westerly fn^;ment of the Ruthenes
in Galida, which fell to Austria in 1772* We shall find
later on diat the relation between the Russian Empire
and these branches of the Russian race still requires
adjustment, but their transfer from Poland to the
Muscovite state at least advanced the problem many
stages nearer solution*
(ii.) Besides these Russian-speaking regions, which
became a more or less integral part of the Russian
national oi^^anism, the Russian Empire had incorpor-
ated by 1795 the vtdiole Lithuanian nation. No
THE RISORGIMBNTO OF POLAND 385
pnbkm, however, atose tn iUs case, becauwTtht
lirhiianiam ait the most backward race in Buiope*
They were not converted from their primitive paganigm
till the fourteenth centnry, and since then they have
drawn their civilisation at second hand from other
people, instead of creating a national tradition of their
own*^
{Hi.) The highly-dvilised German townspeople of
West Prussia were annexed by the Berlin government
in ZTTdf and have never since been severed again
policicdly from the entirely German-speaking provinces
between which they lie. We have already explained the
reasons, racial and geographical, why West Prussia
must remain part of the German national state.
Having disposed of Pbland's alien subjects, let us
turn to the fate of the Poles themselves. The P^fftition
gave them, no less than their subjects, the much-
needed strong government in place of the extreme chaos
under which they had suffered for more than a centtuy ;
but in doing so it deprived them of the one priceless
possession they had won and kept, their national
unity. There was no question for them, as for their
former Russian subjects, of rejoining a larger national
unit. They did not even pass, like the Lidiuanians,
under the dominion of a single State. The carcase
of Poland herself was shared by the two Western
vultures, for Russia, thot^^ reckoning by mere extent
of territory, the lion's share of the spoils had fallen
10 her, had not acquired a single Pblish-speaking district.
Warsaw, the Pbl^ capital on the middle Vistula, be-
came a Prussian frontier fortress ; Cracow, the second
dty of the country near the river's source, was assigned
_^_^^ ^ dariy tht pwciod of ladtpsadgnot. While RwMan mm the
O^DClSl ISflSmflC Ob uK muDUJHUSIQ SCBtB*
a86 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
tD Austria^ The Poles drank the cup of national
humiliation to the dregs.
The nationalist movement to which the Partition gave
birth had hardly time to gather force before the deliverer
came from France* Napoleon overthrew Austria and
Prussia in succession/ and imposed on them, in the
territorial re-settlement that followed, the cession of all
their Polish acquisitions except the first of 1772. He
reconstituted the territory disgoi^ed into the ** Grand
Duchy of Warsaw/' The reversal of fortune was
complete* Not only was the whole Polish population,
with insignificant exceptions, rescued from the foreign
yoke, but for the first time it experienced the benefits of
self-government* To Heine, the lonely Jew spumed
by a Germany with a still unsoftened medieval heart,
the French armies came as the bringers of good tidings
to the individual soul* In Poland, which had seen native
aristocratic anarchy succeeded by alien bureaucratic
repression, the ** principles of the French Revolution ''
became the gospel of a whole nation* The advanced
political system of Western Europe, suddenly intro-
duced and applied for seven years with the intense
energy of the Napoleonic spirit, left a tradition in the
nation which never died out, and which differentiated
them &om their neighbours on all sides, on whom the
French had impressed other memories.
With Napoleon's fall the flood of misfortune did not
return upon the Poles at once* We have seen how the
Congress of Vienna shore away the province of Posen,
to give victorious Prussia a strategic frontier, and met
Russia's claims by erecting the remainder of tiie Dudiy
into a '* constitutional kingdom of Poland " under die
^ At Auicerlits in 1805 and Jena in z8o6. AuiCm did not fofleit her
share of the spoils till after the second war of 1809*
THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND 287
Russian Imperial crown, with the exception of Cracow;
which was cut off and permitted to be a ^^ free dty *^ on
its own account, to satisfy the strategic susceptibilities
of Austria. For fifteen years the diminished nation
retained its liberal constitution and even its French-
o^;anised native army, but its position between the
three vulture powers, risen s^ain from the dust with
beaks and talons sharper than ever, was too precarious
to survive the first spasms of that birth of nationalism
in Central Europe, which the shock of the Napoleonic
wars inevitably precipitated* The July Revolution of
18^ in France stirred Poland to an ill-considered re-
volt in the following year, which gave Absolutism its
opportunity. The constitution was abolished, and the
ootmtry organised in Russian military governorships,
v/hUe in 1846 the Austrians marched into Cracow.
The desperate revolution that broke out again in 1863
was suppressed by the cool co-operation of the three
interest^ powers. It had come too late. The crisis of
Italy's risorgimento was already overpassed ; in Prussia
Bismarckianism was on the point of tritmiph. With
the strangling of this last convulsion, the life of the
Polish nation seemed to be extinguished for ever.
But the nineteenth century saw a more important event
than the ups and downs of national aspirations — ^the
spread over Etirope of that Industrial Revolution which
takes no account of the political ordinances of men.
Pbkmd's rich mineral deposits turned her into a strong-
hold of the new economic regime, and during the
blackest years of political persecution her population has
grown steadily in numbers and wealth. There are now
at least eighteen million Poles in the world : within the
shelter of the Imperial tari£f-wall, the manufactures of
the Russian districts have a preference in the vast rural
K
a88 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
market that stretches East o( them into Asia ; while
Polish unskilled laboui has supplanted the native
German in Wes^halia, permeated to Odessa on the
Black Sea, and found its way in increasing volume to
the United States.
Thus the majority of the Polish nation under Russian
rule has actually benefited ecooomically by its subjection,
and economics have gone far tomrds settling the
political destinies of the whole reunited Poland, for
yrbosc creatiim we now hope. Even her eighteen
millions > cannot stand by themselves, with no coast-
line and no physical finnttiers.' She must go into
parmership with one of her larger neighbours.
The Ca^thian barrier shuts her out from the Balkan
Zollverein. The course of the Vistula and the £cee
navigation down it to Danzi^ that we have stipulated
for her, point to union with Germany ; but the bulk <rf
EHsland's eqxjrts do not flow down this natural route to
the Baltic. Her real commercial links are with the
great Rtissian continent. If Galida becomes Russian
soil up to the Carpathians, the trunk railway connectii^
Warsaw with the Black Sea will pass through Lemburg
to Odessa without encotmtering either political frontier
or customs' barrier, and Poland will turn her face South-
Eastwards once more, but this time in co-opetatioii
with Russia, and not in rivalry widi her as during the
Middle Ages.
Muttial economic interests, then, favour die idea of
■ Accofdii^ to the last eeaaaaea <£. tbe ic^Mctivc Bmptm, tbex aic
{SSififoo PcHci in Ruaua, 4^33/000 in AusUia, md ova 3,000,000 ia
'nuBia. This ^ves a total of ij.tSj/rao : but there b«s been no
centus in Ruma siiice 1897, and in 1907 the Russian Pokt wcrt
unofficially enunated at 10,740.000.
' Except for a short sectioo erf the Carpathians, the boundaries of the
Polirii natkn are demaications of the Baltic plain as aibitiarilr dnwn
IS the outlines of the prairie states in the U£^
\
THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND aSg
incorporating the new Poland within the Rtissian
Empire by a federal union. Till the outbreak of the
present war, the growing economic bond, which pointed
to oo-operation in the future, had no opportunity of
asserting itself in face of the political enmity inherited
from the past by these two rival leaders of the Slavonic
World* But now that the war has miraculously broken
down the barriers of tradition, the economic factor will
obtrude itself in full force. If the war is won by the
Allies, the experiment of federation, which will almost
certainly be attempted in the subsequent European
settlement, will have been made possible by this sudden
sentimental reconciliation; but in nations as in in-
dividuals, violent emotions pass as abruptly as they
oome. The psychological crisis of the war is important
in the present case, just because the economic motive is
there to deepen its e£fect into a friendship and under-
standing durable enough to survive the psychological
ditente of Pftaoe*
The scheme of federation will have to be framed in
the most liberal spirit. The national self-oonsdousness
of die Poles has been almost morbidly hypertrophied by
generations of repression, and though die removal of
the evil will gradually weaken the memory of it, the
Catholic Polish nation will still be sundered by language
and rel^on from the Lutheran Prussians and Orthodox
Russians on either side of it. Moreover, the capacity
for self-government will be present, as well as the desire
for it (the modem Polish people has travelled far from
the PoUsh aristocracy of a century and a half ago) and
this capacity will have the highest demands made upon
it by die industrial problems with which the new state
will be confronted. Pbland will take her share with die
odier nations of Europe in the search after a new
ago THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
harmotiy between Man and his changed economic
environment, and this effort cannot be guided to success
by an alien '' strong government "' imposed from without,
but only by a national democracy of the Woriceis
evolved from within*
If, then, the new Poland is to be a healthy organism,
she will require the maximum measure of Home Rule
and the minimum of external control consistent with
membership of a wider political group. The local
autonomy of Galida, the most liberally-treated province
of Austria, will fix a level which the Russian govern-
ment's concessions will have to surpass. We have
seen that if Russia is in a position at the end of the war
to reunite the Polish nation, the Galidan fragment will
be irresistibly attracted by the possibility; but it will
also be full of apprehension at exchanging the certainty
of Austrian toleration for a dubiotis reception into the
bosom of Russia, and probably it will refuse to commit
itself without a guarantee from all the parties to the
European settlement that the autonomy of the whole
nation within the new state shall be at least as far reach-
ing as that which this favoured section already enjoys.
The Russian Government would certainly chafe at
such a proposal, and deny the right of other nations to
intervene in Russia's internal politics. If the proposal
concerned merely the Poles already indtided within
the Russian Empire, this protest wotdd have weight;
but it would actually arise as the corollary to a large
extension of the Russian frontier, made possible by the
joint action of the Allied Powers, and Russia must
admit the authority of France and Great Britain to
assert their point of view in the settlement of questions
raised by the war in the East, unless she is willing to
resign all share herself in the settlement of the West.
THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND 29X
Without derogating from the dignity of Russia, the
Western Powers might well define a certain measure
of Home Rule as the indispensable condition for the
re^union of the Austrian and Prussian fragments to the
main body of Poland within the common fix>ntier of the
Russian Empire* They cotdd not, of coturse, bring
more than moral pressure to bear upon Russia either
to admit or to endorse the guarantee ; but if Russia
withheld her pledge, the Galidan plebiscite would give
her a rude shock by declaring itself for federation with
the Balkan Zollverein or with the New Germany, and,
deprived of the support of her friends, . she wotdd find
herself compelled to yield subsequently with a bad grace
what she might have granted beforehand as a bounty*
The federal relation, then, between Poland and
Russia shotdd be as secure as material interests and
treaty-stiptdations can make it ; but we have still to
define the geographical limits of the future autonomous
state against the main body of the Russian Empire.
It goes without saying that die Poles must abandon the
memory of their past dominion* The New Poland
must include no districts but those of Polish nationality ;
and, since the line to be drawn will simply be an
administrative botmdary, not a tariff wall or a strategic
frontier, it can follow with some accuracy the convolu-
tions of the linguistic border* Determined on this
principle, it will exclude from Poland not merely a strip
of the present ** Vistula-governments *' of Russia, but
also the major part of Galida inhabited by a Little
Russian population* At the moment when they are
regaining their own liberty, the Poles cannot grudge
ne^bour nationalities the same boon*
The course of the new boundary should be more or
less as follows :
^ wiihi
393 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Starting ^ from the South-East comer of the East-
Prussian fiontier, just West of the point where the
Lyck-Bialystock Railway crosses it, it should run South-
East to the North bank of the River Narew, hitting it
near the junction of die Augustowo Canal, that links the
Vistula and Niemen systems. Hence it should follow
die river's course upwards to a point due South of
Bialystock. Here it should leave the river and take
a S.S.W. direction, excluding Bielsk awards the East,
till it reaches the Bug. Crossing the latter river about
fifty miles below Brest, it should continue in the same
direction till it hits the Wieprz, and should then follow
up the course of this stream in turn towards tlie S.S.E.,
as far as its most Easterly bend, thus including Lublin
but excluding Cholm. After leaving the Wieprz, die
line should run due South, excluding Zamosz, till it
hits the present Austro-Russian frontier, whence it
should b^ South-West, tiU it meets the River San
at its great at^ horn East to North-West, between
Yaroslav and Przemysl. Thence it should follow dte
course of the San upwards, thus assigning Yaroslav
to Poland, but exdudit^ Przemysl, which lies on the
river's R^t bank, till it reaches the other great bend
horn North »> East between Przemysl and Sanok. At
this point it should leave the San, excluding Sanok,
run due South-West till it strikes the Hui^arian {louda
along the summit of the Carpathians, and proceed to
follow the mountains Westward, till it reaches the point
on the summit of die range, just East of the Ratiboi-
Sillein Railway, which we took as the starting-place for
our western frontier.'
' Sec Map II.
' The boundary which we have just sketched between Autafxnwui
PoUod and the main body c^ tiie Rusnan Empire practically coinddti
with die Baitem border of the lemtory eontuaiaufy inhabited by Poks :
THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND 293
Between this new boundary and tfae.Russo-Gennan
frontier sketched in our second chapter^ we have
delimited a territory of hardly less eactent than the area
of England and Wales* Up till now^ Russia has been
draining her strength by holding down half this country
against its will ; but if the whole cotmtry is organised
as a national state in partnership with her, it will be
transformed into a magnificent btdwark against her
ne^bours on the West, and give its whole eneqy to
swell the economic and military resources of her
Empire.
Russia, then, has every motive of self-interest for
permanendy conciliating the Pbles. Otur advocatus
diaboli, however, will not throw up his case* ** To the
common sense of liberal Western Europe,^^ he will say,
** your argument wotild be a truism, but it is truer
still that ' Itistinct is Lord of All/ Russia has not the
bat just as our Western frontier of Poland detadbed numerous nolated
enclaves of German population from the German national state (Ch. IL,
Sect. D), so its new eastern boundary will leave Polish enclaves of
equal importance entangled in the Ruthene section of Galida which we
are proposing to eidude from the Autonomous Polish Unit* These
PoUsh advance-guards in Eastern Galida and those German advance-
snards in Western Poland are precisely parallel to one another in
mslocJcal origin and contemporary character. Just like the Germans»
the Poles overflowed into the domain of their more backward neigh-
bours : diey have Polonised the urban centres— such as Lvov, Tamc^
and Staaislau — as thoroughly as the German immigrants have Ger-
manised the cities of Posen and Thorn, and they have also established
themselves in force in the suburban countryside; yet it would be
Bwyjphically impossible to include this Poluh ** Dtmersion ** in the
Pofash Autonomous State without transferring with them a far more
numerous Ruthene element. We must mete the same measure on
both frontiers : if the Poles are to gain at the Germans' eipense on the
West, tfiev must reconcile themselves on the East to corresponding
kssBcs in me Ruthenes' favour. This is only another instance of that
icreducible nnWttwtm of national injustice which is involved in the most
ttfoatabiy drawn political frontiers. The Polish minority is doomed to
daappnintment as inexorably as the German, but like the German it
nmit oe granted in compensation a European Guarantee of its national
tndlviduality under the alien government which geogrqihy imposes
tqMO it*
294 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
understanding to grasp a liberal policy* If she were
merely unscruptdous, she wotdd begin to act righteously
as soon as it paid her to do so ; but she is stupid as weU>
and from the combination of these two vices no good
can spring* '
This criticism compels us to abandon the field
of Russia's objective interests^ and to reopen our
discussion on the more fundamental plane of her
subjective character ; for unless we can vindicate that^
the New Poland we have so elaborately built up will
prove a house of cards^ and may carry the other nations
of Europe with it when it collapses in ruin*
B« The National Evolution of Rassia
Germany's reproach to England for having joined
forces with Russia agaixist her, is couched in terms like
these : '' You have decided to fight us because you
hate and fear our Militarism* You believe we aspire
to ' World Empire ' and mean to take your inheritance
from you by force ; and naturally you imagine, as every
nation must, that your own downfall wotdd be a setback
to civilisation* We will not be at the pains to argue
with you, but we point out that, if you succeed in
crush^g us with Russia's aid, you are laying up a worse
fate both for yourselves and for the world* Russia, on
the most favourable interpretation, is only made of the
same stuff as ourselves, but in an inferior quality and of
a coarser grain* Her ambitions and her mediods of
forwarding them reflect our own, and our strength is the
only bar to their realisation* The Cossack will ride
over our corpses to the conquest of the world, and
when you see him enter Copenhagen and Stamboul and
THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION OF RUSSIA 295
Koweitf you will regret the annihilation of Gerznan
cukure/*
We could dismiss Germany's ** Panslav ** bogy with
a smilet if it had not found a response in this country,
but ^* After Germany, Russia '" is a phrase that already
comes too glibly upon people's lips* Is the supreme
objective of Peace, for whidi we are sacrificing every-
thmg now, illusory^ And does the lifting of one war-
cloud merely draw a heavier one above the horisson <
U the sotd of Russia is like the soul of modem Germany,
with the evil heightened and the good expunged, there
seems no issue for the World* Germany has challenged
die comparison, and we will take her at her word and
test it*
If we compare the governments of the two empires,
die German contention is clearly right* The purposes
and methods of the Russian and German bureaucracies
are roughly the same ; but whereas the German govern-
ment is efficient and, on the whole, has public opinion
behind it, the Russian is out of touch with the nation,
obscurantist and ineffective* Judging, then, by the
functioning of the administrative machine, Germany
is far superior to Russia, and it may be argued diat
administrative efficiency is an adequate criterion of com-
parative civilisation, because it presupposes that faculty
of orderliness and looking-ahead, which we emphasised
at the beginning as civilisation's essence*
This argument would be valid if the government
and the governed cotdd be equated ; but even in the
democratically-organised states of Western Europe the
two factors do not coincide, and in the Centre and
Bast diey do not approximate to one another* On die
one side stands the German Government, exploiting all
the national accuracy and forethought bom of civilise-
296 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
tjon to bring about its own specialised^ and^ as we jtidge
it, uncivilised end of world-conquest, jtist as a tnist
exploits security of property and rapidity of communica-
tions to gnaw die wealth ci the community in which it
shelters* On the other side the great German nation,
renotmdng its ideals and surrendering that very essence
of civilisation, the power of free choice and of lookii^
ahead with one's own eyes, has indentured itself to the
service of the Government's bad cause* The success
of the German Government in its present policy has been
an indictment of the German Nation in the present
phase of its character. You need employ no violence
against a willing accomplice, nor conduct an obscurantist
campa^ against a demoralised inteUigenzia which has
the lie already in its sotd*
We have seen that Germany's history has reversed the
normal order of European evolution* Prussianism is in
the ascendant : it is the dominant, inspiring force of
the nation's growth, and any success Germany may
achieve tmder its banner will impress the iron mould
more deeply upon her soul* The Prussian militaristic
bureaucracy is a living power* Russia, on the other
hand, has reproduced so far precisely the phases of
Western Europe, though, like Serbia and her other
Balkan prot^^es, she has suffered from a very bte start*
Her history began little more than two hundred years
ago* In the seventeenth century she was a stagnant
mass, still dazed by the shock of Mongol conquest that
had struck her down four centuries earlier, half
orientalised by the Mongol suzerainty that had followed
the impact, and cut o£f from the outer World by the
lack of a seaboard* She stood to Europe as Macedonia
stood to Hellas at the beginning of the fourth century
B«c*, and she fotmd her Philip in Peter the Great*
THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION OF RUSSIA 397
Peter gave Russia that '^ strong government'^ and
** oonsolidation ** without which a nation cannot begin
to grow* He forcefully shook her into wakefulness by
Europeanising her organisation and breaking her a
doorway on to the Baltic through which the current of
European ixifluence should thenceforth flow in* The
foundation of the new capital, Petersburg, typifies both
his actual achievement and die orientation he gave to
the future* At first the leaven seemed only to be
fermenting on the surface (Peter did not strike his
acquaintances in England and Holland as an apostle of
culture), but the stir of the eighteenth century kneaded
it deeper in* On the West, the Swedish dominion over
the Baltic was finally broken, and Russia securely
established along its whole Eastern shore : Southwards,
the Empress Catherine of German birth, whose long
reign marks the acme of the ** strong government *'
phase, opened another door on the North coast of the
Black Sea, and in this quarter Russian advance identified
itself with the march of civilisation* Prosperous com-
mercial ports repbced the Turkish villages on the
seaboard, and the taming of the nomad Tatars on
die steppe threw open the hinterland to agricultural
development for the first time since the break-up of the
Ancient World*
The e^teenth century in Russia corresponded to the
Tudor period in England, and to the regime of Richelieu
and Colbert in France : ^^ L'^tat, c'itait le Gouveme-
ment,*' and the Administration had an imposing record
of progress to show for its masterful all-pervasiveness*
As in France, there followed an age of transition,
charged with an atmosphere of foreboding like that
which drew ** Aprte moi le d^uge ** from Louis XV*
The nineteenth century has brought the Russian
298 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
bureaucracy to bankruptcy. It has no loiter risen to
the problems of internal growth, and it has suffeied
grave military discredit abroad. The Crimean cam-
pa^ was its " War of the Spanish Successkm/' ^
unexpectedly disastrous stn^i^ with Jiq>an its
" Seven Years' War." Its prest^e has suffuied bknn
fetm which it can never recover, but the outworn
chrysalis has held together long enoi^;h to do its wotk.
During this same nineteenth century the Russian
nation, an inarticulate Tityos lying prone across half a
continent, has awakened to the dearest consciousness,
and expressed itself in a literature as distinctive and as
momentous for the spiritual history of the Workl as
the literature of eighteenth-century France.
Nor is this a house built on the sands. The Russian
int^igeruia draws its living water from a deep well-
spring of national Ufe. When you read a Russian novel
you pass out of the cosmopolitan environment of
Industrial Europe into " Ikly Russia," an environment
of river and forest and snow and sun, and a tradition of
religion and of social customs, utterly unfamiliar to you
before, but you habituate yourself to it with unlooked-
for ease, because the sense of life that pulses through
it is as convincing as the sound of the sea, when it
falls, after months of absence, upon your ears. The
Russian nation has found its soul: the next phase
will inevitably follow, and effete " strong government "
give place to the captaincy of the nation over its
own destiny.
The present war is a very important moment in this
transformation. It, too, finds a parallel in the history
of France, namely, the successful intervention in the
cause of American Independence, that gave liberalism
entrance into the fortress <tf official policy. The
i
THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION OF RUSSIA 299
Russian Government cannot unfurl its banner in a
similar cause, without considerably changing the legend
embroidered upon it before it is laid away zgzin* A
change of outlook will mean a change of personnel :
Russia may find a Turgot and a Necker who, profiting
by the experience of their French forerunners, will solve
the problems of which they despaired ; and there may
even now be fighting in her army's ranks a stronger and
more purposeful Lafayette*
The friction and misunderstanding, then, that at
present exists between the Government and the People
of Russia is not, as German opinion suggests, a sign
of dissolution but a symptom of growth* If the nation
here assented to the bureaucracy's standpoint, that
would indeed be a proof of national depravity* But
the Rus^an bureaucracy belongs to the past : Liberalism
is in the ascendant, and will prevail*
We have now compared Germany and Rtissia by
bringing out the respective tendencies that are asserting
themselves in each ; and this is the only true principle of
estimating national valties* The symbolism of political
cartoons, in which the figure of John Bull, a squire in
'' Regency '' costume, stands for the British Nation,
and Uncle Jonathan, a business man with the beard and
coat of the 'sixties, for the United States, is actively
misleading* It takes a vivid impression of a nation at
some critical moment in its history, when the attention
of the World is centred upon it, and perpetuates it with
the inqplication that that is the nation's eternal essence*
The device produces the same comic effect as the snap^
shot of a race-horse galloping, but the humotur con-
sists just in the static presentment of a kinetic reality,
and thus depends upon a distortion of ** historical "
truth. National character is not sutic, because a nation
300 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
is alive. The essence of it is not the phase it happens
to occupy at the moment, but the vibole movement c£
its growth, and we can forecast a movement's tendency
with most probability, though, of course, any calcula-
tion of the future is ex hypothesi conjectural, by a
survey of such phases of it as have already been
actualised.
Met in this way, Germany's challei^e turns to her
■ own despite. Our conclusion makes us more eager
than ever for Germany's discomfiture in this war and
more zealous in our alliance with Russia, for we feel
that the triumph of Russia, as well as the triunq>h of
Great Britain and France, will be in harmony wi^ the
true advancement of European civilisation.
C. Devolution
We have compared the past history of Russia with
that of other European nations, and analc^ has
inclined us to augur for her a liberal future. Yet we
shall not satisfy our German critic till we have offered
him some concrete programme of the lines on which
this prospective liberalism can, should, and will be
realised.
The chief obstacle to the prc^ess of self-government
in Russia has been the shortness of her history. The
second, and hardly less formidable, factor is the im-
mensity of her territorial extent. Before the invention
of modem communications, a v^orous absolutism
seemed the only force capable of holding bother
such a widespread mass of humanity. But now the
mechanism of telegraph and railway can take the plaa
of " strong-government's " centripetal action, and local
U individuality receive free play in the political ^here
1
DEVOLUTION 301
widiout risk of ultimate disruption* The new oi^anisa-
tion of Poland will react on the rest of the Empire of
which it is to form a part, and the first step towards
self-government will be devolution on an extensive
scale.
(i*) The Baltic G>ast populations/ from the North-
East jErontier of Prussia to the Gulf of Finland, are none
of them Russian in nationality, and, till their successive
absorption in the Russian Empire during the course of
the eighteenth century, they have all had a distinctive
history of their own.
(a) The Lithtianians, occupying the provinces of
Kovno, Vilna and Suvalki, are not Slavs, but speak a
separate language of the Indo-European funily. Its
closest relations are with Slavonic on the one hand
and Teutonic on the other, and its development, like
that of its speakers, has been arrested in a phase more
archaic than any other living form of Indo-European
speech*
The Lithuanians have remained Roman Catholics
since their voluntary conversion from tribal heathendom
in the fourteenth century aj>., and they were in political
partnership with the Poles between that time and the
Partitions, so that neither language, religion nor tradi-
tion bind them to the Russian people. Though geo-
graphical considerations have made it advantageous
to both parties that this little country' should come
within the jErontiers of the great Empire, the Imperial
Government has no call here to take cognisance of other
than such Imperial business as communications and
■ See the map of European NatiQiiaiitks (VIL).
' The number of Lithuanians in the Russian Empire is estimated at
h'^59/ioo. There are further about 107,000 Lithuanians in East
302 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
defence^ and might satisfactonly leave the whole internal
administration of Lithuania to Home Rtde*
(6) The Letts, inhabiting Courland and Livland on
either bank of the Duna, lie next to the Lithuanians in
the Northward direction* They speak a variety of the
same language, but their history has been different.
They were converted to Christianity by the sword of the
Teutonic Knights, and at the Reformation submissively
followed their masters into the Protestant camp like the
Masurians in Prussia* After the dissolution of the Order,
this territory was partitioned between Sweden and
Poland, and, when it became one again under Russian
government, the German landed aristocracy, descended
from the secularised knights, played for a time a
prominent part in the history of the Empire, owii^ to
their superior education and acquaintance with Euro-
pean life*
(c) The Northern part of Livland, from a line drawn
East and West between the Lake of Pskov and the Gulf
of R^a, together with Esthland, the sister province along
the Southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, has shared
the political and religious history of the Lettish districts ;
but the population here speals a language of entirely
different origin, a dialect of the great Ugro-Finnish
group.
The bond of common Protestantism and German
culture may override these differences of native speech,
and incline the people of Courland, Livland and
Esthland to consolidate all three provinces into a single
self-governing area ; or, inasmuch as public education
in the national langtu^e is one of the chief objects of
devolution, the Lettish-speaking and Esthonian-speak-
ing sections may elect to organise themselves apart
^
DEVOLUTION
303
i^rnatives can be decided by the plebiscite
I
re now passed in review fottr nationalities —
Lithuanians, Letts and Estfas — ^linii^ the
Western fringe of the Russian Empire, on whom
tule should be devolved in varying degrees,
iding to their respective material importance
units, and to the strength of their national
tdousness*
the present war, such a policy would have
to the Russian government little less than a
of the Empire* For a century the autocracy
*sar had been leagued with the autocracies of
Europe in the struggle to repress all nationalist
wherever manifested* But the vitality of
Itsm proved so great that it swallowed up in
tocracy's point of view, and ever since Bismarck
concordat between these two political forces.
It of principles in Europe has been gradually
^ts ground and changing its character. It has
be waged between ruler and people on the
' strong government "" and self-government,
of census taken in 1897 —
Courland
Livofda
Esthonia
Totals
• •
534,000
(79%)
56/xx>
(8^%)
84,000
(ia.75%)
563,000
5i8/)oo
69.9%)
98,000
(7^%)
1x7,000
(9.1%)
366/xx>
16,000
33,000
88d.ooo
170,000
333/xx>
674/xx>
1,395,000
414,000
3,383/»o
L—
714,000
1,411,000
453,000
3,577*000
904 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
and the nations themselves have come to man die
opposing camps, with their former despots at their
head as their chosen leaders, while the issue now at stake
is whether the strong nation shall use the freedom that
it has won for the oppression of its neighbour, or whether
all nations, great and small, shall live orderly side by
side as members of a wider commonwealth*
Hiis issue is being fought out in the present war, and
Russia has joined battle on the side of national liberty.
If her efibrts, in co-operation with those of the Westeto
powers, decide the struggle in favour of our common
cause, and we achieve the much-desired re-settkment of
Central Europe on the national basis, at the expense
of German and Magyar chauvinism, Russia will have
neither the will nor the power to tarry longer from setting
her own house in order* She has sinned against the
National Idea in the past no less than her present
antagonists, and if all the nationalities in her Empire
have rallied rotmd her government at the present crisis,
it is because they are willing to forget the past in the
hope of a happier future* Russia cannot now afibrd
to disaqppoint this hope, even if she is tempted to do so.
The spark of Nationalism has oontinued to smoulder
in the hearts of these border nations, during the century
that they have been ground between the hammer and
anvil of rival imperialisms, and each oppressor has
fostered it in turn to point a thrust in the long bout of
fence against his accomplices. But now Russia, by
putting fordi all her strength to remove the pressure
from the one side with ** blood and iron,'' has pledged
herself to relieve it by her own free grace on the other.
The raising up of these prostrate nations in the blackest
hour of their despair will transform diem from a fringe
<^ disaffection into a gtrdk <^ loyalty, and will be the
DEVOLUTION 305
best guarantee that Russia will not have spent her
strength in vain ; but if the settlement^ at the dose of
this war^ fails to alleviate their condition by Russia's
good-will, the liberal spirit of Europe which will have
triumphed in the victory of the Allies, will inevitably
accomplish their redemption in spite of Russia, and
perhaps to her undoing. Russia has put her hand to
the plough, and cannot turn back*
(ii.) The same considerations shotild induce Russia
not merely to grant Home Rule to a ring of nationalities
within her frontier, but actually to abandon all hold
txpon a population whose national centre of gravity lies
definitely on the f tuther side of it* In the present
camjiaign the Rtissian armies have occupied the Austrian
Ciown-land of Bukovina, pinioned between the Car-
pathians and the North-East angle of Roumania ; but
with the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy the province
shotild pass, not to Russia, but to the neighbouring
Roumanian state, to which its inhabitants beloi^ by
nationality*
Raumania is at present considerably the most pros-
perous and well-populated > of the Balkan States, and
would take the next place in importance to Htmgary
in our proposed Balkan League; but she is in the
unfortunate position of possessing a large ** irredenta *'
both in Hungarian and in Russian territory, which has
so far alienated her sympathies both from the Dual
Monarchy and from the Russian Empire, and prevented
her arrivmg at an enduring understandii^ with either.
Should the European settlement, however, secure a
satisEactory modos vivendi for the non-Magyar nationali-
ties of Htmgary, including her Rotmian citizens, and
so enable Htmgary and Rotunania to co-operate in the
^ Populatioo about 6^0,000 in zgzo.
3o6 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
new nlhreseiiit the quanrel between these two states
would be at an end^ and Roumania's resentment would
oonoentrate itself upon Russia^ much more to Russia's
detriment than before, because Roumania would have
the whde Balkan group behind her. It would therefore
be worth Russia's while to satisfy, if possibk, Rou-
manians just claims by conceding to her not merely
territories conquered in this war, but a province long
incorporated in her Empire*
Roumania covets Bessarabia,^ the district between
the Pruth and the Dniestr. This country is valuable
to Russia simply for its coast-line, which gives her
access to the Northern arm of the Danube delta* The
interior is unimportant to her, for though her chief
Black Sea port, Odessa, lies (mly a few miles up die
coast East of the Dniestr ^^ liman,'"* the railways linking
it to its hinterland, even to the new Russian territory in
Galida, all pass outside Bessarabia, beyond the Dniestr's
Left bank* The interior, however, is the part of the
province where the Rouman element is strong, vrbSt the
steppe towards the coast is inhabited by the relics of
Tatar nomads, by German colonists planted there to
teach them agricultture, and by a large Slavonic element,
Russian colonists and Bulgarian refugees, who have
drifted in during the course of the century*
This gives us a reasonable basis for division* The
new frontier between Russia and Roumania should start
* Ceded by Turkey to Russia in 1812. The popiladoii registettd id
the Russian census of 1897 was 1,9^8,000, includmg
931,000 Rouinans (47.5%)
103,000 Bulgars (5*9%)
60,000 Germans (3.2%)
but Rouman authorities reckon the Rouman element to be three quarters
of the population. See Map V*
* Estuary.
DEVOLUTION 307
at the junction of Prutfa and Danube, pioceed N*NJE*
between the Pruth on the West and the Galatz-Bender
railway on the East, leaving Bender to Russia, but
assigning Kishinev to Roumania, and hit the Dniestr
at the elbow of its South-Eastward bend between
Kriulyany and GrigoriopoL Then it should follow
the course of the Dniestr up to a point just below
Cliotin, whence it should take a line rather South of
West till it hits the left bank of the Pruth again, just
above Tchemowitz* After that, it should follow up the
Pruth till it strikes the present boundary of Bukovina
towards Galida, and should take a South-Western
course identical with that boundary till it reaches the
Hungarian frontier along the summit of the Carpathians,
This compromise, while it satisfies justice, would
not in itself content either party* Roumania, for
economic reasons, wants more coast-line, in spite of
her recent acquisitions from Bulgaria, and strategic
considerations would disincline Russia from introducing
this enormous bend into her new frontier. The trans-
action must be clinched by an economic arrangement.
Even if Roumania acquired the coast between the
Danube delta and the Dniestr Liman, it would profit
her very little, since Odessa, which is, of course, for ever
beyond Rotunania's political grasp, offers the natural
outlet, not only to Bessarabia, but to Moldavia and
perhaps even Transylvania as well. What Roumania
really needs is the use, free from tariff, of this port and
of the railway leading to it from Yassy and Tchemowitz*
It would serve Russia's own interest to grant her
this as well, for Odessa would almost double the
volume of her trade, by focussing all the traffic from her
Western hinterland in addition to that from the North,
yAiSit in return Russia could obtain from the Balkan
3o8 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
2^11verein the free use of a railway to a port on the
^ean ooastt where she could lade and unload her
goods on the open sea*
We have now dealt with the whole fringe of alien
nationalities within the Western frontier of the Russian
Empire* A fringe is all that they are : their territories
are insignificant slices carved from the Empire's enor-
mous bulk, and their populations weigh l^t in the
balance against the Russian-speaking masses that lie
away to their East* The Russians have far less excuse
than the Magyars for the oppression by force or fraud
of their fellow-nationalitiesi because the most quixotic
generosity could not endanger the Rtissian element's
preponderance*^ The mere weight of the Russian
population is sufficient to assture for ever the Russian
character of the Empire, and the balance of numbers
is continually shifting further in its favour year by year,
as colonial areas fill up in the Great North-East* The
only really difficult problem of devolution within the
Empire concerns the relations between the different
branches of the Russian Nation itself^
The Russian race falls into two great divisions,
distinguished by considerable difference of dialect : —
^ The following table, showing the oomparative strengdis of the most
io^ortant natJooalities within the Russian Bmpkt, was compflcd boa
estimates made in 1906 :
Great Russians
White Russians
Little Russians
Poles • • • 'j^ijQoo
Lithuanians • • X/^9»ooo
Letts * • • Z/43^/)oo
Finns . • a^496/xx>
Tatars . 9#738,ooo
Bashkirs i,^^fico
Kirghiz • • 4,084,000
The total population of the Empire was estimated at i49,299»ooo
in the same year.
55,^/x)o \ Total North itostdm. j, ^ j^^^
DEVOLUTION 309
(iO The ^ole North of the oountry is occupied by
the ** Great Russian ** group, which is compositd of
three sub-sections :
(a) The Northern, corresponding to the area of
the former republic of Novgorod, where the Great
Russian dialect is spoken in its most extreme form*
(6) The Western, coinciding with the region once
subject to Lithuania, where the so-called '' White
Russian ** variety of the dialect is current.
(c) The Eastern, round the original core of the
Mtiscovite principality, where the dialect shows diverg-
ences from the pure Northern type similar to those
that prevail in White Russia*
These three modifications of the Great Rtissian speech
have remained mere parochial peculiarities, and have
not aroused any separatist feelings between the popula-
tions that respectively speak them. The third, or
** fSoBcow,** type has established itself as the otgim
of official administration and of educated interooturse,
because the principality of Moscow was the nucleus
out of ^Aiich the New Russia grew up as the Mongol
storm subsided. The sudden birth of a wonderful
literature in the nineteenth century, and the gradual
spread of primary education since the beginning of the
twentieth, have secured it for ever from challenge by
the odier local patois.
(ii.) ** Great Russian,"' then, is a single lai^;u2^e,
and all the populations that speak it form a single
national unit; but when we come to the second or
"' Little Russian ^* division of the race, we find ourselves
in £ace of a real cleavage. The extension of the ** Great
Russians ** coincides on the vdiole with the forest-mne
of the country. The Little Russians lie South of them,
deployed in a long line on the borderland between forest
3IO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
and steppe, which extends from the headwaters of the
Vistula and Dniestr systems in the Carpathians towards
the E*N*Ev till it strikes the upper oourse of the Don
near Voronesh*
This wide«flung ribbon of population has a strong
national feeling of its own* The ** Great Russian ** can
claim that it was he ^o freed the race from the Moslem
yoke, and that the living Russia of the present, with its
glories of arms and of letters, is solely his creation;
but the ** Little Russian ** looks back to the day before
the Mongol appeared in the land, when the Dniepr, not
the Volga, was the holy river of Russia, and Kieff, half
way down its course, her holy dty, the meeting-place of
the ** strot^ government ** and the world-i«l^;ion diat
came up to her from opposite quarters, out of the
Baltic and the Black Sea* He regards himself as the
true heir to this primitive tradition, and his loyalty to
it is all the keener because so many centuries lie between
the Golden Age and his present obscurity.
Little Russia, unlike Muscovy, never recovered from
the Mot^ol catastrophe* She escaped from allegiance
to the Moslem only by submission to the Lithuanian
and Polish dtholic ; and even vdien the Polish Empire
was broken up, she did not win her unity from the
re-settlement, but was divided with the rest of the
spoils between the governments of Moscow and Vienna*
Yet the problem of Little Russian nationalism might
still have been solved* The Ruthenes of Galida were
only a small fraction of the race : the major part of it,
including the national centre, KiefiF, and the whole of the
Dniepr basin, was once more gathered into the fold of a
national Russian state; and if Moscow could have
been liberal enough to accept Kieff as her peer, the
Little Russians would soon have foo^tten thetr
DEVOLUTION 311
partCcuJarism, and only remembered that they and their
Great Russian brethren were all members of One
Orthodox Churchy and citizens of one Holy Russia*
But unfortunately the rulers of Moscow, that true heart
of Russia vdiere all her races and dialects meet, had
migrated Northwards to the Baltic, and the new regime
of Petersburg, established at the farther extremity of
the Great Russian area and exposed to the full influence
of German ideas, had initiated a policy of uniformity
as baneful as that of Joseph IL in the Hapsburg lands,
btst unrelieved by the touch of genius that characterised
Joseph's activity* Russia was to be "" Great Russian,'"
and the Little Russian division of the nation was to be
neither conciliated nor assimilated, but ignored*
This unconstructive policy has been pursued
mrchanirally for more than a century* The Litde
Russian language has been treated as a patois on
the same footing as White Russian or the dialect of
Novgorod, and has rigorously been denied any official
status* All public education and administration has
been conducted in the Moscow variety of Great Russian,
the natural medium in the North, but in Southern
Russia almost a foreign toxigue* The results of this
system have been tmfortunate. Litde Russian national-
ism, effectively prevented from manifesting itself in
external forms throughout its native home, the Ukraine,^
has been irritated by this wanton provocation to an
unnatural tension of consdotisness, and has found a new
stronghold across the Galidan border*
The Little Russian or Ruthene population of the
Austrian Crown-lands has its grievances. Though
^"Ukntne'' (meaning ^borderland/' the same word as the
** Kratn ** of the Slovenes) is the term used to cover all distrjcts of
Ltttk Russian population within the present frontiers of the Russian
3» THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
the Rutfaene peasant proprietors constitute the bulk of
the poptilation in Eastern Galida,^ the big estates
are still nearly everywhere in the hands of a Polish
upper dass, a relic of the Polish domination before the
Partition of 1772, and in the 'eighties of the last century
the Austrian government abandoned the Ruthene
majority to the mercy of the Polish minority, yAaen it
was bidding for the support of the Polish vote in the
parliament at Vienna*
The Poles had the game in their hands, because both
wealth and education were at that time their monopoly,
and they took steps to confirm their racial predomin-
ance* They compelled the Austrian government to
recognise Pblish as the official language of the whole
province, and it has taken the Ruthenes a generation to
secure a modicum of instruction in their own language
at Lemberg ' University* Resentment at their betrayal
to the Poles raised a movement amot^ them in favour
of Russia, and a ** Moskalophil ** party grew up, yAost
programme was that reunion with the national Rtissian
state which is now being realised ; but the Moskalophils
have always been in a minority, and no indictment
against Russian policy in the Ukraine could be more
damning than the almost universal rejection of Russiafl
overtures by the Ruthenes of Eastern Galida*
In modem Austria ** official language ^* has not the
same sinister connotation as in the neighbotur states of
*■ The Ruthene territory amounti to about two*tfairds of the whole
area of Galida, even if we make a liberal allowance for the Msh
enclaves embedded in it : on the other hand, the lUithene deaiait is
only a minority of the total poptdation of Galicia (3/3831000 in igoo, as
a^unst 4^a/xx> Poles), because the Ruthene country is more moan-
tainous amd less developed than die Western districfB occupied by tbe
Poles.
' The German form of Russian Lvov, Little Russian Lwxw, Pdlah
Lwdw*
DEVOLUTION 313
Russia, Prussia and Hungary. Like German in the
remaining Austrian provinces, Polish is ** official ^* in
Galida in the sense that it is the vehicle of ** internal
service ** in the administration of the country. In the
'' external service/' however, that is, in all relations
between the provincial government and the individuals
subject to its jurisdiction, Austrian public law prescribes
in Galida as elsewhere the employment of the private
party^s native speech, if it is recogtiised as customary
{** Landesiiblich **) in the district*
A Ruthene thus enjoys the right to conduct all his
business with the Polish administration in his own
Ruthene tongue* If he is a peasant, he can bring an
action in Ruthene before the public courts : if he is a
deputy, he can debate in Ruthene in the provincial diet*
If he can secure a majority in his village or municipality,
he may make Ruthene the medium of his local self-
government* If he travels on the Galidan railways, he
finds every official notice down to the inscription on his
ticket printed in Ruthene as well as in German and
Polish* In every one of these points his status presents
a remarkable contrast to the position of his brethren
beyond the Russian and Hungarian frontiers. Even
in the sphere of higher education, where the Polish
regime has laid itself open to most criticism, the number
of Ruthene secondary schools in Galida has at least
risen, though slowly, since 1867, while in Hungary the
non-Magyar secondary schools have steadily shrunk
in numbm during the same period* On the whole, we
may say that the Ruthene majority in the Eastern part
of Galida is treated as equitably as is consistent with the
radal supremacy of the Polish minority in the region,
and that here, as elsewhere, Austria has been Europe's
pioneer in the settlement of the problem of nationality.
314 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
In Galiddt then, the Little Russian language is
deprecated but in no sense banned* A society has
floturished for many years at Lemberg which fosters the
living literature, collects and edits the peasant-poetry of
the past, and studies the philological characteristics of
the dialect, with a freedom unheard of East of the
frontier* The Tsar^s government has held the mistaken
point of view that the encouragement of traditional
culture inevitably gives rise to new-fangled political
aspirations, and has thereby provoked this literary group
at Lemberg to become in fact the mouthpiece of a Little
Russian nationalist party, which has the allegiance of a
majority among the Austrian Ruthenes* This party
dreams of a national state in which all fractions of the
Little Russian race shall be united, and its feeling against
Petersbtu^ is so bitter that, in spite of the entente at its
expense between Vienna and the Poles, it is ready
to march under Austria's banner, and aUows its
canvassing in the Ukraine to assume the form of
Austrian propaganda*^
This bizarre situation has suddenly been terminated
by the present war* In the event of the Allies'
success, we have seen that Galida will pass to the
Russian Empire* The whole of the Little Russian race
will finally be united within Russia's frontier, but the
annexation of the Galidan Ruthenes will create the
same situation for her as that of the Galidan Poles.
^ It is true that to win the loyalty of the Ruthenes the Central Govern-
ment at Vienna has had to reverse in some measure its Galidan policy,
and that it has thereby shaken the loyalty of the Pole9» who were out-
raged to find the racial balance in Gadida bein^ redressed from above.
To drive Pole and Ruthene in double harness is really a hopeless task,
and it n probable that Vienna only attempted it at the mstanoe of
Berlin. Since her bungling policy began to reconcile Russian and Mt,
Germany has sought to embarrass Russia in another quarter by txpidt-
ing the problem of the Ukraine.
DEVOLUTION 315
She cannot afford to be less liberal at Lemberg than
Austria has been* She will have to take accx>unt of
her new Ruthene citizens' demands, and this will raise
simultaneously the question of the Ukraine*
The Nationalists will doubtless daim the utmost,
namely, the consolidation of the whole area speaking
the dialect into a single poUtical unit endowed with
very extensive Home Rule, but such a solution has
almost insurmotmtable difficulties in its way*
(i«) The Litde Russian area is woefully lacking
in geographical compactness* It would include the
Ruthene section of Galida, and the present Rtsssian
governments of Volhynia, Podolia, Kieff, Poltava, and
Kharkov, together with the Southern parts of Chernigov
and Voronesh; but, as we have said, this is not so
much an independent region as a border intermediate
between two others*
It is true that it has acquired a peculiar economic
importance, because it more or less coincides with the
famous "'Black Earth'' zone, where during the last
century agrictdture has been developed on a vast scale
under modem methods, bringing in its train a network
of railways, and therewith the beginnings of an industrial
growth* The new wheat production has not confined
itself, however, to the Litde Russian fringe: it has
pushed out South of it into the Black Sea steppe,
which, since the break-up of the Ancient World, had
been a ** no-man's land " swept by one wave after
another of nomad barbarians, till in the latter half
of the eighteenth century the Russian government
wrested the title to its sovereignty from the Porte,
and began to replace the handful of Nogai Tatars,
that had wandered there under Ottoman suzerainty,
by a steady influx of agrioiltural
^
316 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
From the outset this new population has been very
hettrogeneous. The Germanophil government Ot
Catherine II. copied the Hapsbui^ experiment of sowing
civilisation by scattering plantations of German settlers,
and in " New Russia," as in Hui^ary, the balance was
largely made up of refi^ees from the various Christian
populations subject to Tturkish oppression. The
colonisation of the district received an immense impetus
from the emancipation of the ser& in 1861, since when
the peasants ia every province of Russia have been
leaving their ancestral villages and drifting into all the
tmdeveloped areas to take up freehold allotments there ;
but, inasmuch as the Great Russian population of the
Empire is vastly stroi^r than the Little Russian in
□umbers, the Great Russian immigrants into the steppes
outwe^ the Little Russian in the like proportion.
When New Russia has been completely filled up, the
Little Russian element will not be found to predominate,
and so, when the various elements subsequently fuse
themselves into one type, the " New Russian " blend
will not asstune a specifically " Little Russian " colour.
What is true of the Bladk Sea steppes is still truer
of the coast upon whidi they open. Odessa, the new
port founded in 1792, is an indispensable factor in the
economic system of the " Black Earth " ^one, for die
whole grain export passes through its harbour ; but it
has no special links of tradition or dialect with the little
Russian nationality, and is essentially a common oudet
and meeting-place of all races in the Empire, inctudii^
the Poles, whUe the isolated Crimean peninsula whidi
adjoins it on the East has remained the stror^fhold of a
dviUsed agricultural and vine-growing Tatar population.
New Russia, then, has no social bonds of cohesion with
Little Russia, and could never be absorbed into it ; but
DEVOLUTION 317
a sdf-govenui^ Little Russian unit which did not extend
to the coast would gec^aphically and economically be
almost unthinkable* It would possess none of the pre-
requisites for self-sufficiency*
(ii«) Yet even if Little Russia were able, by assimilat-
ii% the coast or otherwise, to consolidate herself, a more
serious difficulty would still remain : she would be too
unwieldy a block for the architecture of the Russian
Empire. There are two possible plans on which a
federal group can be built up.
(a) Where the whole population to be federated is
honu^eneous in nationality, and the only problem is
caused by its bulk, it is best oi^anised in a large number
of self-governing units, which, being ex hypothesi
identical in quality, will probably work together in
harmony, if only their parity in size and importance is
secured as well. This structure has approved itself in
the history of the U.S J^*, and will probably be adopted
as the basis of the New China.
(b) American history, however, has also shown that this
system of equal units is extremely dangerous where the
total population is divided by differences of nationality.
In fact, so soon as the least divergence of national self-
ooosciousness creeps in, it will transform the divisions
between units, y/bidi formerly had merely administra-
tive significance, into spiritual lines of cleavage, and
since the units are equal and share no particular centre
of gravity, there will be no constructive force to counter-
act this centrifugal tendency. A gradual divergence of
this kind within such a structure cost the United States a
civil war before they could remedy it : in a case where
the national differences are violent and traditional, and
where the architect has still a clean slate, to adopt this
principle would be deliberate folly.
^
318 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
When common interest or necessity induces several
different nationalities to attempt combination in a single
oi^anic political group,' success CrT only oome through
inequality, by subjectix^ a number of lesser satellites to
the attraction of a central planet, and the inequality
must be signal. If the satellites approach the planet too
nearly in mass, or the planet shiinla into too even a
ratio with the satellites, they will all, when a certain point
is reached, fly off at a tai^ent, and probably collide
fatally with one another before diey severally disappear
in space.
"The unity of the Russian Empire is to the interest of
nearly all the nationaUties that are members of it ; but
that unity can only be maintained by grouping the rest *
round a Russian national state of immense preptmdei^
ance. We have said that the Russian nation nud have
no fear of being swamped by its fellow-nadonalitia,
but ^t remains true (uiiy so long as the nation itself
remains united. The Uttte Russian element forms
nearly a third of the mbtAt race,' and if it were to break
off from the main body and attempt to follow an orbit d
its own, it would fatally dislocate the balance of the vbak
Imperial system. It would approximate sufficiently
in mass to the Great Russian remnant to struck with
it for predominance, and this fratricidal strife ifouU
wear down the strength of the two fragments, and
prevent them from concentratit^ their energy to keep
' As eoMtaaad with a loose, panne concert like the proposeil Balkaa
ZoUvcrein.
* Without prejudice, of course, to their own local sclf-gaverameii(>
' Great Ruasians . , 6i.Si9,ooo (.~70.$%)
Little Runtaos :
latheUbaiae 33,381,0001 ---«,—„./_—,_« 1
InGalida . 3%^] 3S,763.«>o (=39.5%)
Total of Ruasian Nation . 87,333,000
DEVOLUTION 319
the minor bodies in their courses* The result would be
at worst the complete break-up of the Russian Empire,
and at best a protracted political paralysis*
If diis catastrophe is to be avoided, the Little Russians
must abandon their particularism, and allow themselves
to be reabsorbed in the indivisible body of ** Holy
Russia/^ But this can only come about if the splendid
traditions of a thousand years are no longer obscured by
the bitter experience of a century* The Tsar^s govern-
ment cannot grant the Little Russians autonomy ; but
it can see to it that the sacrifice of sentiment which the
refusal demands shall entail no loss of honour or of
material advantage, and that the Little Russians shall
take up their citizenship in the new national unit gladly
as the Great Russians' peers, and not sullenly as their
inferiors. The Little Russian dialect must at last be
given just recognition* It must not merely become the
official language of those provinces where it is the
native speech, but it must be allowed equal currency with
the Moscow dialect in the central executive and in the
common parliament, not indeed of the whole Russian
Empire, but of the Russian national state that will be its
core*
This Russian core will be an experiment in centralised
self-govemment on a lai^er scale than any yet attempted.^
It will embrace the whole country from Archangel on
the White Sea to Odessa on the Bbck, from Petrograd
on the Baltic to Astrakhan on the Caspian, and from
the summit of the Carpathian mountains to the further
slope of the Urals* C)n the East and South it will be
bounded only by the vacant areas along the Trans-
* The^ actaon of the ezxstjng representative organ, the Imperial
Duma, if restricted, and it cannot in any sense be considered as the
fomnug power in Rusia : ultimate authority is still in the hands of
uie bureaucracy.
L
y» THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Siberian Railway, irtiidi still await effective colonisation,
and by the military districts of the Caucasus and the
Asiatic steppes, whose primary need at present is the
unbroken maintenance of strong government, and which
will not become able to govern themselves till many
years have habituated them to a civilisation established
from without. The region ripe for immediate self-
government is nevertheless immense, and the popula-
tioa contained within the limits indicated, which will
be represented in the parhament of the national Rus^an
unit, falls little short of a hundred milUons. There
are, however, several factors eminently &vourable to
the successful oi^anisation of this huge mass of human
1
(i.) The geographical unwieldiness of the country is
counterbalanced by the extraordinary fadUty of com-
munication. The great navigable rivers have always
afforded magnificent natural highways : the Volga
steamer was as important a factor in nineteenth-century
Russia as the Mississippi steamer was in the contem-
potary development of the U.SA., and the network of
railways whidi, as in America, has first supplemented,
and now begun to supplant, the river-steamer's use,
especially in the new comlands of the South, can extend
itself over the length and breadth of the land without
encountering any barrier of mountains.
(ii.) The Great Russian race has uken full advantage
of the geographical elasticity of its habitat, and, expand-
ing from its original centre of dispersion in the Nortb-
Westera forests, has kept pace with the political exten-
sion of the Muscovite state's frontiers. In its contact
with the alien races that it has thereby encountered, it
has displayed a vitality and assimilative power com-
parable to that of the Anglo-Saxon race in Amedca.
DEVOLUTION 331
The little patches of Ugro-Finnish population that still
survive in the heart of Great Russia, — ^Karelians between
Novgorod and Tver among the Valdai hills, Chere-
misses and Mordvins between Nijni Novgorod and
Kazan on the Middle Volga, — ^testify to the vanished
majorities of these tribes, which have adopted the
speech and nationality of their Russian conquerors as
far as the White Sea* The same process is being con-
tinued to-day at the expense of the more widely spread
Finnish groups of the North-East, — Votyaks and
Syryens and Voguls and Ostyaks, — ^protected though
they are by the rampart of the Northern Urals.^
The nomadic, Turkish - speaking communities,
Bashkirs and Chuvashes,' that adjoin the Volga-Finns
on the South-East, wandering with their flocks among
the Southern Urals and along the border of the steppes,
are suffering the fate of those pathetic litde Red Indian
reservations in Canada and the U*S.A«, round which
the tide of European immigration surged higher all
through the nineteenth centtuy, till some inconsequent
act of lawlessness broke the moral obligation that had
so far preserved their bounds, and abandoned them to
submergence beneath the flood* But the mere engulfing
of inferior races is not the greatest triumph of the
A The remnants of Finnish population still awaiting absorption by the
Rmsian race, indudtng the Ural groups, but excluding, of course, the
9,3 j3/)oo Finns of the Grand Duchy who have a avilisatioa and a
natioiaal consciousness superior, on the whole, to the Russian, make up
a total of a,353,ooo (identical, curiously enough, with the total A
civilised Finns in Finland). There are furthermore 141^,000 civilised
Finns in Russian territory adjoining the Grand Duchy who are unlikely
to be assimilated.
'Bashkirs .... im9iOOO
Chttvashes • 844)000
Total • . a,337,ooo
332 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Russian nation : it has known how to lecondle a rival
dvilisation.
Christian and K^>slem have met as enemies on many
fields, and the result of the struggle has often brought
them into the relation of conquerors and conquered.
Yet whichever party has triumphed, a great gulf has
generally remained fixed between the two, and enforced
political union, instead of passing over, as in ao many
other cases, into oi^anic political unity, has only
accentuated their mutual antipathy, Russia alone has
tnan^^ed to solve the problem. The Tatars of the
Volga-Khanates,* conquered by her in the sixteenth
century, were communities of peasants and merdiants
widi a tradition of culture, derived from Persia and
Baghdad, as strongly characterised as that which Russia
herself had drawn from Q)nstantinople and the West ;
yet now the Tatars, while remaining true to their
religion, have become Russian in soul, and have fbtmd
both the opporttmity and the inclination to play a full
part in the social and political life of the Russian nation.
This is a victory not of race but of civilisation, or
rather, what is better still, it is the blending of two
civilisations into a new harmony.
It is clear, then, that ttx Great Russian element has
the power to weld the whole hundred millions into a
consolidated nation, and in the process not only Finns,
Bashkirs and Tatars, but the more compact Litde
Russian masses as well, will ultimately lose their
peculiar individuality. It would be idle for the Utile
Russians to complain at the prospect. U tlieir language
is henceforth given as good an opporttmity for self-
assertion as the Moscow dialect, and still yields ground
before the latter, the cause will no longer be human
> Kotu and AftraUua.
\
DEVOLUTION 323
violence and injustice, but the simple, unalterable
fact of the other tongue's superior vitality* The
Little Russian need not be ashamed of accepting for
his own a language which during the last century has
become the vehicle of a literature of world-wide im-
portance, beside which the traditional peasant ballads
sedulously published at Lembei^ sink into almost
comic insignificance*
The new Russian nation will look not towards the
past but towards the future, and the national character
that VTill emerge will be finer than any of its component
elements ; for litde Russian and Tatar will nobly
leaven the Great Russian lump, and ** Scratch the
Russian and you find the Tatar *^ will invert its meaning,
and turn from a national reproach to be the national
motto*
This homogeneous national state will finally achieve
devolution, not through antagonistic, or at any
rate unsymmetrical, nationalistic sub-parliaments, but
through strongly developed county councils* In 1864,
towards the end of the great decade of reform,
Alexander II* called into existence elective assemblies
based, like the medieval ** Estates ** of Western
Europe, upon distinctions of social caste, and graded
in two scales : the provincial zemstvos, representing
whole governments, and the district s^emstvos and
municipal dumas, representing their sub-divisions*
These councils did not produce many concrete results
by the feverish activity that marked the first years of
their existence* In 1890 their powers were severely
restricted, and it seemed as though confinement to
the purely consultative sphere would reduce them to
complete unreality ; but the revolutionary movement of
1904-6, precipitated by the disastrous war with Japan,
334 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
awoke in them an unexpeaed energy. During the
chaos into which the Empire fell for three years, they
took the initiative. Repeated congresses of delegates
from the local dumas and zemstvos evolved, in con-
ference with the autocracy, the constitution of OcKiber
190;, and the elective machinery of the first national
dumas was modelled on the local plan. The provincial,
district, and municipal councils have not let their
recovered power slip again from their hands, and a
phase of really constructive activity undoubtedly lies
before them.
This, then, is the Russia of the future, which we
can discern through the chrysalis of eighteenth century
autocracy, from which the Russia of the present has been
so painfully extricating herself. It is not a mere dream
of the imagination. The regime in possession fasdnaus
our attention, just as the royal murders in Serbia occu'
pied the whole vision of the Magyar professor. The
repressive, unscrupulous police^ovemment keeps us
unpleasantly aware of its existence by the starring
echoes of its misdeeds that filter tlirough into our press,
and the hysterical, often criminal, intrigues c^ the
revolutionists, who claim to represent the intelligtiiiia,
reveal a dearth of constructive ideas that almost justifies
the government's attitude. Yet beneath this sordid
surface a less melodramatic political activity has been
at work for a generation without attracting the world's
notice. The exploitadoo of the " Black Earth " zone,
the conciliation of the Moslems, and the evoludon of
the zemstvos are s^ns of the times.
EXPANSION 325
D* Expansion
We have not, however, completely answered the
Germans' case* ** Granted/' they will say, ** that
Russia has this liberal future before her, that national
self-government will be attained by the different races
within the Empire, alien and Russian alike, and that
the old ideal of * Repression at home and aggression
abroad,' will be sloughed off together with her obsolete
eighteenth-century ^ strong-government ' : if we grant
you all this, you must allow us to turn against you your
own weapon of historical analogy* You have illustrated
the tendency of Russia's growth by a comparison with
eighteenth-centtuy France. But France, after she had
achieved national self-government in the Revolution,
proceeded to rob territory from other nations like the
most vulgar-minded despotic conqueror* Perhaps you
may ascribe this conduct not to France herself, but to
the personal ambition of Napoleon ; or you may say
that, though the French nation a century ago did adopt
unmodified the Bourbons' dynastic point of view, the
Industrial Revolution has intervened meanwhile and
entirely changed the attitude of self-governing nations
towards their foreign policy — ^that they do not now wage
war for territorial acquisition but for economic advan-
tage, aiming to add market to market, not province to
province* If you take up this position, we can answer
you out of your own mouth*
** Let us return to your comparison of Germany and
Russia* You have proved that the present analogies
between them are deceptive : strong government in
Russia did its work under Peter the Great, and is now a
functionless survival, while Bismarck had to rehabituate
3a6 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
a coltuied, peaceable people to ' blood and ircm ' and
put strong government in the foreground £^:ain, because
in Germany its primary task of consolidation had nevet
previously been achieved. But our new militarism did
not die with the accomplishment of the task for wfaicb
it had been called into being : rightly or wrongly, wt
Germans have cherished it (as you have pointed out)
precisely as a weapon in the modem economic battle,
to snatch the industrial markets of the World from the
nations established in possession of them. If you beat
us in this war, we shall have failed, but when we iaSi,
the Russian nation steps into our shoes. Like ourselves
they will covet, and justly covet, a ' place in the Sun/
and do you imagine that, however liberal their ideals
may be, economic pressure will not in the end fora
them to stake their all on the same desperate throw iot
World Empire that we are making at this moment^
Think also of the analogies of the Future : economic
environment is a stronger force than national dis-
position."
This is the German advocate's last and most dangerous
cotmter-attack ; but we can meet it with a crushing reply,
for it rests on an entire misconception of the Russian
Empire's economic character. Germany, by the
density of her population, the nature of her physical
resources, and her geographical position and extent,
inevitably came into line with the Western nations of
Europe^ and was forced into industrial competition
with them under exasperatit^ly disadvantageous con-
ditions. The economic structure of the Russian
Empire belongs to a different type altogether.
Beyond the densely-populated, highly-organised little
states of Europe, whidi at present focus in themselves
the civilisation of the world by drawing all its raw
EXPANSION 327
products into the crucible of their industry, lies a ring
of states in the making, which dwarf Europe by the
vastness of their cahbre* None of them are full grown
yet« Some of them, like Australia and Canada and the
Argentine, have all the weapons of civilisation at their
command, but not the hands to wield them — empty
lands, crying out for the life-blood of population to fill
their veins* Some, like India and China, seethe with
human life, but have found no spirit to brood over the
waters and call order out of chaos, so that their human
forces evaporate in anarchy, and the material wealth,
that might make their millions of lives worth living, still
remains untapped* Only one of them, the U*S*A*,
has yet developed far enough on its course to give us
an inkling of what Time will make of them all*
These cosmopolitan units of the future will not
compete with the present national units of Europe :
they will grow up to supersede them as human life
passes over from the national to the international scale ;
but they are still young and can afford to abide their time*
We have only to look East of the Volga and the Urals
to see that the Russian Empire is one of their brother-
hood*
When the Trans-Siberian railway was completed,
after ten years^ work,in 1902, we thought of it as a move in
the Imperialist game, which was to bring the Russian
military machine within striking distance of the Yellow
Sea, and perhaps reduce China to be the Empire's vassal*
This idea may, in fact, have been uppermost in the
Government's mind, and it certainly was an important
link in the chain of events that led to the Japanese
War* But the real significance of the railway is far
different, and has been in no wise affected by the ruin
of Russia's ambitions in the Far East* Its building
3a8 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
marks an epoch in the expansion of the Russian nation
as important as that marked by the first trans-con-
tinental railways of North America for the expansion
of the Anglo-Saxon race*
During the seventeenth century, when the Frendi
explorers were penetrating up the St« Lawrence into
the Great Lakes, and discovering portages to the Ohio
and Mississippi that brought their canoes on to the river-
system of the Mexican gulf, 0)ssack adventurers had
already crossed the Urals and worked their way along
the equally magnificent water-routes of Northern Asia,
up the Obi and Angara rivers, across Lake Baikal, and
then down the Amur to the shores of the Pacific.
Like Great Britain, however, in Australia, the Russian
Govenmient at first found no better use for this vacant
land, that had fallen so casually into their hands, than to
relegate their convicts to the Siberian mines,^ and Siberia
has become the by-word for a desobte pbce of torment,
like the frozen asone in Dante's Hell. But in the nine-
teenth century the expanding peasantry of Great Russia
b^an to cross the middle Volga, and a current of
Eastward migration set in among them as strong as
that which carried the American squatters across the
Alleghanies into the prairies of the West* Any one vAo
has read Tolstoy's tsde of the land-hui^ry peasant, who
abandoned one plot after another for still larger allot-
ments further East, till at last he struck a bargain with
the wandering Bashkirs and fell a victim to his own
greed, will reo^inise the analogy at once, and mentally
translate the scene into incidents of the 'forties, T^en
Mormon settlers bought up the hunting-grounds of
Red Indian chiefs*
I The ooly wealth of the country they diought of eiq>loitiiig, beside
the fur of its forest creatures*
EXPANSION 3^
Here, as in America, colomsation has followed the
railway, and now the peasant is establishix^ himself on
either side of the new. line, right across Siberia* The
eiq>erience of Canada has shown what human occupation
can achieve in the teeth of adverse conditions, how it
can even modify the rigour of climate and temperature
by introducing agriculture and breaking up the surface
of the soil* Siberia will be the Canada of the twentieth
century. Already the well-watered grazing grounds of
the steppe, which the railway traverses between the Urals
and the Yenisei, are exporting dairy produce to Western
Europe, and the plateaux of Irkutsk and Trans-
baikalia will yield greater wealth still when their timber
and mines are exploited to their full capacity*
The human wealth of the new territories is even
more promising than their material prospects* The
criminal convict has not proved a bad fotmdation for
the new Anglo-Saxon nation of the Australian common-
wealth ; but a considerable proportion of the Siberian
convicts have been political offenders, that is, the most
independent, enei^etic and intellectual members of the
Russian urban class* Governmental selection has en-
dowed Siberia with Russia's fittest, and the descendants
of these exiles, granted their freedom on condition that
they setded in the country for ever, have mingled with
the stock of the Cossack trappers and already produced
a racial variety characterised by the same enterprising
qualities as distinguish the Westerner in the United
The territories strung along the railway, then, have
as great a future before them as the Western provinces
of the Canadian Dominion* As they fill with a vigoious
population of Russian speech, they will gradually claim
Home Rule, and take their place by the side of ** Holy
)9o THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Russia '^ herself and the lesser natioiialities of the
Western border, as independent members of die
decentralised Empire* Just as in Canadaj moreover,
setdement and exploitation will push further North
from their base-line along the railway than is at present
conceived possible, moving down the course of the great
rivers till they reach an impassable limit in the frozen
tundras* That, however, will not be the end of Siberia's
ei^ansion: she has already stretched out her hands
toward the South*
The settlement after the Japanese War left under
Russian control the Northern section of Manchuria
through which her railway takes a direct line from
Lake Baikal to Vladivostodc, while the recent revolu-
tion in China gave the pastoral tribes of Outer Mongolia
an opportunity to throw off Chinese suzerainty and
place themselves under Russian protection* It would
be a gain to civilisation if these territories were per-
manendy and in formal terms annexed to the Russian
Empire* China's sole tide to them is their conquest by
the Manchu dynasty two and a half centuries ago.
She has done nothing to improve their condition all
the time they have been in her power, and now that
she has undertaken that task of internal reconstruction
which will demand a century of devoted concentration
if it is to be carried through, they can be nothing
but a drag upon her ill-spared strength* In taking
them over once for all, Russia would have the precedent
of the United States, which compelled Mexico to cede
her neglected Northern territories in 1847* They
were much criticised at the time for their conduct, but
have been completely justified by its results*
Outer Mongolia is sundered from China by the broad
zone of the Gobi desert, while its frontier against the
EXPANSION 33Z
Russiaii Empire is an arbitrary line^ for all its rivers
flow either into Lake. Baikal or into the Amur* It is
that ** Cauldron of the North ** from whose pasture-
plateau wave after wave of nomads used to pour out
over the mountain rim into the Asiatic steppes, and
devastate the cultivated lands of the South and West
upon which they burst* The expansion of Russia
stemmed that tide, and now Russian enterprise will
penetrate in its turn into the ** cauldron/^ and make of
it one of the most productive stock-breeding areas in
the World.
jNor is Mongolia the only Chinese dependency that
would benefit by transference to Russian rule* South-
West of Mongolia lies the Tarim basin, the heart of
Asia, girdled on South, East, and North by giant
motmtains, the Kuen-Lung, the Pamir pbteau and
die Thian Shan, but open towards the Gobi desert on the
East* The popubtion is as alien to the Chinese nation
as are the Mongols* In spite of the mountain barriers^
all its links are towards the West* It is Turkish in
speech, a rearguard of the great race,^ and it is Moslem
in faith, an outpost flung Eastward between the two
Buddhist masses of Mongolia and Tibet* In the
'sixties of the last century national antipathy vented
itself in a fierce rebellion against Chinese dominion,
which for several years secured the country a harassed
independence ; but the tide soon turned* Turkestan
was reduced once more to subjection by the weight
of Chinese numbers, and has been held down by
Chinese garrisons during the forty years that have
elapsed*
In truth the country is not hard to hold* It did not
^ Lost to this blind alley when the main body bufst out of the
** cauldron ** and streamed towards the Oxtis and the Volga.
332 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
need the bloody vei^eance of the Chinese anmes to
crush the people's soul ; it was being crushed already
by the losing fight 2^;ainst the physical environment
The Tarim basin is undergoing a long-drawn-out
process of desiccation. Every year the streams that
flow inwards from the snow-covered mountains pene-
trate less deep into the basin's centre, and are stifled by
the desert after a shorter course ; while the sand, blown
forward by the constant North-East wind in great wave-
ridges many miles long, engulfs every year a fresh village,
and buries another patch of cultivation* The batde
against the desert is beyond the native's strength, but
both he and his country are worth saving, and a vigorous
European government, with the material apparatus of
modem civilisation at its command, could stem the
sand waves by embankments and plantations, eke out
the snow-water's gift by subterranean irrigation, and in
some measure restore the Basin to the prosperity of two
thousand years ago, when the cultures of Greece, India
and China found in it their blending-grotmd. Only
Russia can accomplish Tturkestan's salvation, and
Great Britain would willingly allow her a free hand
there, if she undertook in return to make Kuen-Lung
the limit of her Southward advance, and to leave Tibet,
that lies beyond it, under the tmdisputed influence of
the Indian Empire.
Here is Russia's field of expansion for the twentieth
century. She has to fill these immense empty terri-
tories with the white population their temperate climate
invites, and the achievement of the task will be a race
against time* The population of the Empire may now
total 150 millions, but it is still the most thinly-inhabited
of the European states, while South of the Gobi desert
lies China, with perhaps three times as many millions
EXPANSION 333
Gxowded on to a space less than a quarter of Russia's
extent*
The first ripples of Chinese migration are already
striking upon the East Indies^ Australia and the Pacific
sea^board of North America, and the brutality with
which these states are repelling this peaceful, casual
invasion shows how terribly they dread the pressure to
come. Forcible exclusion will succeed for the present,
because China still lies in the grip of a thousand years'
political paralysis; but the power of movement is
already returning to her limbs. The fundamental
factor of world-politics during the next century will be
the competition between China and the new common-
wealths* China will strive to reorganise her national
Hfe, and to bring all her immeasurable latent strength to
bear on the effort to win her '' place in the Stm ** (a
more titanic struggle this than Germany's present
endeavour) : the others will make haste to swell the
ranks of their white population till they can muster
enough defenders to man the wide boundaries of the
inheritance they have marked out for themselves, and
become strong enough either to fling back China's onset
or to deter her from making it at all* All the threatened
natbns — Canada, the U*S*A*, the South American
republics. New Zealand and Australia — ^will draw
together into a league, to preserve the Pacific from
Chinese domination* Japan will probably join their
ranks, for she is the Ghreat Britain of the China Seas,
and, just like ourselves, would be menaced most seriously
by the emergence of a World-power on the continent
opposite her island country* Russia, who has not
even a strip of sea to protect her, but is China's im-
mediate continental neighbour along a vast land-
frontier, will actually be the chief promoter of this
334 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
defensive entente, for she will be exposed to the first
brtint of the Chinese attack*
Under these drcumstances it is quite inconceivable
that the German forecast should come true. The great
Russian army of 19x4, when it has fulfiilled its task of
crushing militarism in Central Europe, will have no
more temptation to proceed to the warlike conquest of
the world than the American armies had, after they
had vindicated the Union in the 'sixties. Like them
it will disband, to answer the call of economic conquest
from the steppes and forests of the great North-East.
Nor will the Russian peasants, in the generation to come,
flock into urban centres and exchange agriculture for
industry, as the German peasants have been doii^ since
zSyx* Russia will send every stirplus child bred in her
home villages to build up the new Russian villages in
Siberia : she cannot spare a man for the towns* Yet
if Russia does not contemplate an industrial career, then,
however triumphant be her issue from this war, she
cannot possibly become a menace to the Industrial
nations of Europe. Grant that her strength increases
till she has it in her power to overcome their united
forces, she will still have no motive for doing so. The
only spoils of victory would be the great tropical de-
pendencies these nations maintain, primarily as sources
of raw material and to a lesser degree as markets for their
own production : to a nation without manufactures
there would be no value whatsoever in their possession.
These considerations finally dispose of that bug-bear
which haunted British fore^ policy during the nine-
teenth century, the darker to India of Russia's East-
ward advance. The Indian Empire is the vastest, the
most populous, and the most difficult to govern of all
tropical dominions held by European powers : it is
EXPANSION 335
also the best tropical market for European industry that
there is, and we are the most industrialised nation in
Europe : and yet, so far as we can estimate the economic
restilts of our position there, the balance of trade is
steadily going less in our favour* It is accordingly
most unlikely that Russia will ever stake her fortune on
an attempt to burden herself with the administration of
India, which in her case would bring no economic
reward whatsoever, and would cripple her in the vital
task of building up her bulwarks against China*
The Indian Empire, moreover, is no passive con-
glomeration of populations, that can be transferred like
slaves from one master to another* That was more or
less the condition of the peninsula a century and a half
ago, otherwise we should never have established our rule
over it, with the absurdly small resources of which we
could dispose ; but in the meantime ** strong govern-
ment'' has here performed one of its most brilliant
achievements in all history* The three htmdred millions
of Indian people are divided by religious barriers in
the extreme form of caste, by differences of language
that coincide with the traditional race-hatred of con-
querors and conquered, and by geographical diversity
as great as that between the Kashmir valleys and the
Deccan ; yet under the fostering aegis of British rule
they are being liberated successively from chaos and
from particularism* They have at last begtm to find a
common self-consciousness, and to give sure promise
that India will take its place in the end as a great self-
governing nation of the new calibre* So far from being
in danger of another foreign conquest, India is beginning
to dispense with that trusteeship into which the British
conquest of the eighteenth century has gradually de-
veloped, and when she is mistress of her own destiny.
336 THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
it is she that will be the danger to others. The pioblem
of Indian emigration is as serious as that of Chinese,
and the Khyber Pass, instead of being traversed by
Russian armies marching South, will become the high-
road of Indian coolies migratiiig Northwards to labour
on the irrigation of the Ozus and Jaxartes basins, and
settle upon the lands thdr industry will have recLnined
ftotD the desert.
Russia, then, has no booty to gain &om the other
nations of Europe. " But if this is so," the Gennan
will ask, " why has she thrown herself into the present
struggle with the German Empire and the Dual
Monarchy < Why does she regard it, as she evidently
does, as a supreme crisis in her history, an issue of life
or death i What is the meaning of her passionate inter-
vention on Serbia's behalf i " The answer to these
questions demands a separate chapter.
^
RUSSIA'S NEEDS 337
CHAPTER DC
RUSSIA'S NEEDS
We have seen that the Russian Empire will never become
an industrial and commercial power; but like every
other unit in the new international World she has need
of a free outlet to the high seas, through which she may
transmit to foreign markets the raw produce of her
vast continental hinterland, and supply herself with the
manufactured goods of industrial cotmtries in return*
Such outlets she has never yet obtained* Till the
eighteenth century her only port was Archangel on the
White Sea, and this perhaps sufficed her during the
era of stagnant isolation : at any rate the English
Merchant Adventurers found it worth their while to
trade there, though it is ice-bound two-thirds of the
year.^ In the year 1700, the Baltic was a Swedish lake,
and the Black Sea a Turkish one* Peter and Catherine
broke the maritime monopoly of these two powers, and
gave Russia a sea-board on both waters* Odessa and
Riga have grown in a century and a half to be magnifi-
cent ports, and would suffice in themselves for the needs
of a Russia much more highly developed than the
present* But they are no more in direct communication
with the Oceanic highways of international commerce
than are the ports of Milwaukee and Chicago on the
Great Lakes. By an unlucky fotality, both the natural
coastlines of Russia only introduce her to land-locked
seas, and the narrow passage that connects each of them
with the great ocean-spaces beyond has in either case
> From about October to May.
^ RUSSIA'S NEEDS
lemained till tiiis day outside die boatiea of the
Russian Empire, and must continue so to remain for
cogent reasons.
(i.) The population of the shores in question, betveen
which these narrow seas flow, namely, of the Danish
peninsula and islands on the one hand and of the
Bosphonis and Dardanelles on the other, is aUen to
Russia in nationality, and would in neither case wish to
become part of the IRussian Empire.
(ii.) Even if these populations did consent, throi^
hope of economic advantage, promise d pohdcal
privilege, or the like, to throw in their lot with Russia,
the situation thus created would be still more unfair
and disadvantageous to the smaller states that share
with Russia these inland waters, than it is to Russia as
it stands at present. It would place their oommera
completely at Russia's mercy, whereas at present Russia
is already formidable enough in streng^ and size to
make the powers in control of the straits respea her own
commerce under ordinary drcumstances.
The solution indicated by these considerations is that
the command of the entrances to both these seas should
be held in trust, without prejudice to the national self-
government of the populations through which they Sow,
for all parties, without distinction, that are interested
in their use — primarily for all states possessing ports on
the inland seas in question, and secondarily for all
political and economic groups the World over that trade
upon the sea, since commerce is an international concern
and will become so more and more as our civilisation
develops.
We shall be able to discuss more effectively how this
can be done, if we deal with the two regions separately
and in detail.
\
IN THE BALTIC 339
A« The Liberation of the Baltic
The mouth of the Baltic consists of several winding
channels^ that force their way between Sweden, the
Danish islands and Jutland. They are all of them
narrow enough to be commanded in pbces by fortress-
artillery on shore, and their length and intricacy make
them ^ ideal area for mines. wUch, as the pre^t war
has shown, can be laid down effectively enough to
block all traffic through them, even by a navy that is not
in immediate possession of their coasts* In fact the
power to close or open these entrances to the Baltic
really passed from Denmark, which had neither the
interest nor the strength to treat Russia unjustly, to
Germany, which had the very strongest interest in
obtaining the power to do so, as soon as the cutting
of the canal from the Elbe estuary to Kiel Haven gave
the German fleet the means of transferring its whole
force from the North Sea to the Baltic and back again
by a private passage under its own exclusive control*
This new asset gave Germany such a decisive advantage
over Russia, who had to divide her strength between
three separate squadrons in the Baltic, the Bbck Sea, and
the Far East, that the btter Empire abandoned naval
competition for the control of the Baltic, and sought
to find egress to the North Atlantic by another way*
We have noted that Archangel, the earUest port
Russia had, and still her only port on the open ocean,
is practically valueless because it is ice-bound the greater
part of the year* But if you follow the coast Westward
beyond the mouth of the White Sea, and then round
the North Cape, which is the North-West comer of
the Eurasian continent, you come within the influence
340 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
of the Gtilf Stieam. Its impetus carries it past the
British bles up the West coast of Norway, keep-
iag the clinute temperate and the sea perennially free
&om drift ice at least a dozen degrees further North-
ward than along any other meridian.^ Unfortunately for
Russia, Norwegian colonists, following the warm current
and availing themselves of the easy coast-wise oavigatum
from fjord to fjord, had already occupied the whole of
this open littoral before the backwoodsmen of No^^rod
had made their laborious way overland to their illusoiy
sea-board at Archangel. The whole coast-strip as fiar
as the North Cape and round its comer to the Varai^r
Fjord has become and remained Norwegian in nation-
ality, and is now an inalietuble portion of Norway's
territory.
Between this important region and the Russiin
frontier a broad barrier was interposed by Finland, so
long as she remained a Swedish province, but the
settlement of 1814 endorsed an accomplished fact by
bringing Finland within the Russian Empire as a self-
governing national state under the Imperial crown, widi
much the same status as the constitutional kingdom of
Poland. During the whole century that has elapsed,
there has been a silent contest on Russia's part to press
her way over Finland's carcase to a Norwegian port on
the open Atlantic, and on the part of the Scanc^navian
powers, backed by Great Britain, K> maintain the ezisdi^
arrangement of constitutions and frontiers.
To fortify the Scandinavian peninsula against Russian
encroachment, the Vienna Congress linked its two dts-
■ On the fnrtber side of tbc Atlantic a c^d current setting dom dw
Greenland cout carrica the vanguard of die drift ke so £ai Soudi that
it endangen shipping plying on the routes between Europe and Nc*
York.
^
IN THE BALTIC 341
oofdant natjonalities together by a personal union. This
experiment had a more successful history than the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which the same
Congress welded together as a bulwark against France ;
but it collapsed finally, none the less, nine years ago/
while on the other side Russia has been levelling her
path by a systematic attempt to crush Finnish nation-
ality out of existence*
In their politics and social life the Finns are one
of the most li^;hly-civilised nations of Europe* The
smallneas of their population ' and the unindustrialised
character of their economics have simplified the
problems set them to solve, but within their modest
dimensions they have solved them to perfection* The
tradition of their culture, and their Lutheran religion,
both come from Sweden, and the townspeople on the
coast are still lai^ely Swedish in race and language ;
but since the political connection with Sweden has been
broken, the native Finnish speech, which belongs to a
non-Indo-European family, though enriched with many
primitive Teutonic loan words, has raised its head and
proved itself to possess enough vitality to become the
vehide of national development.
With Russia Finland has no inward bonds of union
whatsoever, neither of religion nor of language nor of
tradition nor even of geography, for she lies away in a
comer, and her sea-board, besides fronting merely upon
the Baltic, is much less accessible from the Russian
hinterland than are the outlets upon the Baltic, White
Sea and Black Sea which Russia possesses elsewhere*
'In 1905.
* The censiif taken to 1901 showed a total of 3,713*000, ttM>i*<^^fig
3,353,000 Finns
35O1O00 Swedes
XO^OOO OtbCfB.
342 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
Finland has simply been the victim of Russia's ambi-
tion for an open port on the Norwegian ooast^ because
the eventual railway to that port must run through her
territory* It is a precise repetition of the relations
between the Magyars and Croatia. A small nationality
has been inahenably endowed by Geography with the
fatal function of standing between a powerful nation
and a sea-board to which she ardently desires access :
the stronger power has been so stup^ and barbarous
as to imagine no better means of satisfying her wants
than the destruction of the little nation that stands in
the way of their realisation ; and the latter, fighting
desperately for life, is looking round for some stxot^
helper ^o will bring the oppressor to his knees, set
her free from all connection with him, and shatter
for ever his projects, for which she has stiffered so
ternbly*
There would be poetical justice in such a consumma-
tion, for it would be the natural outcome of the bullying
power's behaviour ; but it would not solve the problem
at issue, but only bring forth evil from evil, reversing
instead of eliminating the injustice and sowing the seeds
of future war*
We have seen that if we win this war, and the Dual
Monarchy collapses, Croatia will probably achieve
complete political freedom from Magyar tyranny, but
that she must not, in such an event, be allowed to use
her advantage merely to take the offensive in the racial
feud : she must give Hungary facilities for realising all
her legitimate political desires by enterii^ into economic
co-operation with her* But the same issue of the war,
for which we hope, will not effect the forcible h*bera-
tion of Finland, and this imposes all the more urgently
upon us the duty of securing that, ^en the setdement
IN THE BALTIC 3^
comes, Finland shall obtain as much and more from
the justice, good sense and liberalism of our victorious
ally Russia, as she would have obtained from her com-
pulsory resignation in the event of defeat*
The war has already taught Russia that her Scandi-
navian policy has been a blunder. The Eastern
boundary of disaffected Finland is only a few miles
from Petrograd* Germany's complete naval command
of the Baltic gives her the initiative along the Finnish
coast, and though the inntunerable islands and skerries
are a favourable field for the Russian coast-defence
torpedo-craft, the extent of coast to be patrolled and
the sympathies of the population with the enemy
make the landing of German troops quite a feasible
project* Once a German expeditionary force was
operating successfully in the country, there is little
doubt that the war party in Sweden would gain the
upper hand, and send two htmdred thousand men across
the Bothnian gulf to support it, and this pressure on
the other flank would have as weakening an e£Fect upon
the Russian offensive along the Vistula as the advance
of the Russian armies in the latter quarter has had upon
the German invasion in the West*
We trust that the danger is now past, and that
Sweden will preserve her neutrality, but we must take
care that her peaceful policy brings gain and not loss
to her interest and her honour, by including in the
European settlement some such terms as follows :
(i.) The perpetual integrity and independence of both
Norway and Sweden shall be guaranteed by Europe*
(ii*) In return for this, Norway shall allow Russia to
lead a railway of Russian gauge across Finland and up
the left bank of the Tomei River to some perennially
open port on her North-West coast, either TromsS or
344 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
Hammeif est or both^ according to the lie of the land,^
without interposing a customs-barrier at any point along
this route between the Russian frontier and the open
sea*
The Russophobe party in Sweden might still be
inclined to take the view that Swedish ^'national
honour ** could only be satisfied by obtaining a European
guarantee of autonomy for Finland within the Russian
Empire^ in addition to that of integrity and independ-
ence for Sweden herself. ** The national self-govern-
ment of Finland/' they will say, '" is secured to her under
the terms by which she was incorporated in the Empire
in 1814, yet it is gradually being nullified, by the
machiavellian policy of the Imperial Government, to
the same dead level of absolutism to which constitu-
tional Poland was reduced at a stroke in February 183a.
Fitmish liberty can only be rescued by intervention
from outside/'
The facts in question are tmfortunately true, but the
foundation upon them of such a proposal would be
open to very grave objections* In the first place it
would certainly be Utopian to expect that a victorious
Russia would submit to the imposition of a guarantee
which would reflect upon her conduct in the past and
thus imply her humiliation in the present* The case
of Finland is radically different from that of Norway
and Sweden. The two latter countries are entirely
external to the Russian Empire, and the guarantee we
are demanding for them in no way affects Russia's
internal structure* It might be argued that it is levelled
specifically at Russia in fact if not in name, and would
seriously limit her freedom in these two countries' regard ;
^ The last sectkm of this raflway wiU tn any case be a difficult engineer-
ing problem : see map of European Nationalities (VII.)-
IN THE BALTIC 345
but the formulation in general instead of individual
terms is of great importance for the psychology of
national pride, and after all this potential check upon
Russia's free action 2^;ainst Norway and Sweden is only
to be imposed in rettun for a substantial concession
on their part to Russia's vital economic interests of
facilities which by their very nature would give Russia,
in addition to her fair economic gain, a wholly un-
warrantable political leverage in this quarter, imless
such a result were deliberately guarded against by a
provision of the kind proposed*
Guarantees will never be stable so long as they are
one-sided, for their ultimate sanction is not the ^inill of
the guarantors, but the mutual advantage of the parties
affected* This explains how our previous require-
ment of a guarantee for the New Poland is consistent
with our present standpoint towards the Finnish
question* Both Poland and Finland are to be members
of the Russian Empire ; but if the European Concert
guaranteed the constitutional autonomy within this
larger group of the united Poland, it would only be
imposing an obligation upon Russia in return for the
simtdtaneous extension of her imperial boundaries by
the reunion in the new constitutional state of the Poles
at present subject to Prussia and Austria* Indeed, these
fragments of the Polish nation would be so unwilling to
enter the Russian Empire without a European guarantee
to reassure them, that it would actually be in Russia's
interest to st^gest such a guarantee herself even if no
other party took the initiative, in order to make sure of
rallying to her flag the whole Polish nation* In that
case she would be conceding autonomy to half a
nationality already subject to her, in order to obtain the
willing co-operation of the whole* Finland, however, has
\
346 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
ao " irredeata " beyond the Russian frontier i^ch could
be made the basis of a bai^ain for the improved status
within that frontier of the whole nationality, and there-
fore a guarantee extorted from Russia in Finland's
favour would not be set off by any corresponding gain
on Russia's part. The element a( reciprocity would be
lacking, and the swallowing of such an tmsweetened pill
would implant a dangerous resentment in the heart of
the Russian nation.
Yet even supposing that Russia would not only
submit in this question to the dictation of Europe but
would also recover from the resentment it at first
aroused, we learnt from our discussion of the Hungarian
and Tchech problems that the intrusion of an inter-
national scafiblding in the structure of an independent
political unit, so far from being a salutary principle, is
a dangerous extemporisation. It is only to be employed
as a pis aUer when some particular national house is too
seriously divided against itself to stand on its own
foundations and cannot be allowed to coUapse without
involving the whole Etuopean block in its ruin.
The assumption underlying the federation of a
number of different nations within a sit^e pditical
group like the Russian Empire is that, yrt^e they are
severally involved with one another too closely to
disengage for themselves a completely independent
political existence, they possess a common interest and
a common unity whidh sharply sunder their devekip-
ment as a group from that of all other groups or units
outside their common frontier. If Russia and Finland
cannot adjust their differences entirely between them-
selves without the intervention of an external guarantee,
the Empire in which they are nominally federated
becomes an unreality, for the guarantee will piise its
IN THE BALTIC 347
joints asunder like a wedge* Even if the initial friction
between Russia and Finland were overcome^ the
reference of their quarrels to European arbitration
would aggravate them on every occasion, and the
tension would extend itself to the relations between
Russia and Sweden, who would almost inevitably
assume the r61e of Europe^s inspector, watching to see
if Finland were enjoying her guaranteed rights*
The Finnish guarantee, then, would only spoil instead
of perfecting those good relations between Russia and the
two nations of the Scandinavian peninsula, which our
original proposals were designed to create. We must
trust the future of Finland to Russia's good faith and
good sense* In opening to her a free railway across
Finland to a free port on the Norwegian coast, we
eliminate her chief motive for trampling the Finnish
nation to death, and this is all that we can do* We have
already convinced ourselves that the ultimate solution of
the national questions of Europe, and therewith the
establishment of European peace, depends not upon
mechanical adjustments, but upon a change of heart in
the nations themselves* If we cannot obtain a reversal
of Russians attitude towards Finland by negotiating her
Atlantic railway, we cannot artificially produce the
desired result by forcing her to submit to a guarantee*
There is every reason to expect, however, that the
issue between Finland and Russia will find its solution
as a secondary consequence of the Atlantic railway and
the guarantee to Scandinavia, and if so, our arrange-
ments will have secured to all parties concerned what
they really want : to Norway, Sweden and Finland
their national self-government, and to Russia her direct
commercial access to an open Atlantic port* But the
problem of the Baltic remains to be solved*
\
348 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
" Your pfoposed railway to the Atlantic," a critic
would object, " will onl^ provide a clumsy and ci>
cuitous channel of communication between Russia and
the outer World. Russia will always fmd the most
direct, and by far the cheapest, passage for the flow of
trade between her own frontiers and the commercial
highways of the Atlantic, not by railway transit overland
to a foreign port on the open Ocean, but by shipment
from the ports on her Baltic oiast down the water-
passage that communicates with the North Sea througli
the Baltic's narrow mouths. These entrances of the
Baltic, the natural outlet for the vast hinterland of
Russia, are at present at the mercy of the German navy.
" I can answer off-hand the first of the two questions
which gave rise to this chapter : Rtissia has entered upon
this struggle against Germany with all her national
mu^t to realise an object vital to her national existence,
the hlieration of the Baltic Sea from German control.
I&r relations with Scandinavia and Finland will cer-
tainly require settlement, and you are r^t to devote
attention to them : nevertheless, they are of altogether
secondary importance. If our hopes are fulfilled, and
the Allies win this war, Russia's most just and most
urgent mandate to the Peace Conference will be the
removal from the strategical points of vantage in the
Baltic of this German pirate, who menaces the peaceful
commerce of all other nations with ports upon die
Baltic coastline.
" The satisfaction of Russia's demand is the problem
before you, and till you have solved it, you will not
have quenched the well-spring of dissension between
the German and Russian nations. Again and again it
will spring up into war, vbik even your Atlantic railway
will turn from an alleviation into a new danger. Rusia>
IN THE BALTIC 349
tf she ts compelled once and for all to resign to Germany
the naval command of the Baltic, will not submit to
the lack of any naval sally-port whatsoever upon the
Western seas, but will attempt to repeat on her railway
to the Norwegian coast the policy she devised at the
beginning of the century in Manchuria. She will seek
to turn her free port into a fortified naval base, and the
danger of Tromso or Hammerfest developing into an
Atlantic Port Arthur may finally wreck the good under-
standing between Russia and Great Britain, and involve
the latter power in a war for the stronghold's destruction
as costly as the sieges of Sebastopol and of Port Arthur
itself* Such may be the consequences of indecision
now* In the question of the Baltic the futture peace of all
the European powers is at stake/'
We cannot neglect our critic's warning, for the con-
siderations by which he supports it are unanswerable,
but we shall be in a better position to give him satisfaction
if we can persuade him first to set forth on his own
account what he considers the indispensable minimum
of conditions necessary to ensure the liberation of the
Baltic in the sense Russia intends* We will remind
him, however, before we let him speak, that such terms
inevitably involve a serious alteration of the status quo
to Germany's detriment, and that it is therefore doubly
important in this instance sympathetically to bear in
mind her national point of view, and scrupulously to
avoid all wanton offence to her honour and interest*
He will probably accept otir proposal with assurance,
and launch out into his disquisition with studied
moderation*
** In the first place," he will begin, ** the independ-
ence and neutraUty of Denmark must be guaranteed
by Europe, and the guarantors must further subsidise
390 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
her to a sufficient extent to enable her to carry ottt
her intenuttonal duties effectively. Her task is to
fortify the three channels ^ between the Danish islands
and the peninsulas of Jutland and Sweden, that connect
the waters of the Baltic with the North Sea, and also the
approaches to these channels at either end, with such
formidable batteries on land and torpedo flotillas cm
sea, that she will be able to ' move on ' any fleet that
attempts to bbckade them or seal them up with mines.
" Denmark would have every reason for fulfillii^ this
task honottrably and impartially. The national inde-
pendence guaranteed her in consideration of it is the
tmly remaining object of her foreign policy, when oscx
she has recovered her national tmity by the restoration
of Schleswig ; and the only event that could endanger
that guarantee would be another attempt by a sii^
power to impose its dominion on the rest of Europe by
war. If any power planned such a stroke, Denmark
would be the last state to enter into collusion with the
criminal, and the knowledge of her incorruptibility
wottld go far to discotur^e the design.
" But Denmark cannot perform this function suc-
cessfully so long as the Kiel Canal is at the disposal
of the German navy, and therefore some permanent
arrangement must be made that will put it in Dennia^'s
power, in the event of war, at once to hinder Gemun
warships from passing through it."
He will admit the fact which we have already estab-
lished, that the whole province of Ifolstein, thiou^
which the Canal runs, is German in nationahty, and
cannot be cut away from the United German state,
and he will therefore hesitate to propose the singles!
solution, which would be to hiing the territory on either
■ Great Belt, Little Bel^ and Sound.
IN THE BALTIC . 351
bank of the Canal withm the Danish frontier* Nor,
he will agree, would it be just in itself to deprive Ger-
many of all profit from a great engineering work
adiieved by h^ enterprise and at her expense. ** But
we shall judge the issue better/^ he will explain, ** if we
distinguish in our minds between the Canal^s economic
and strategic consequences*
** Geography/' he will continue, '' has put the
German nation in possession of a low-lying isthmus
between the estuary of the Elbe and the Baltic Sea,
and the nation, by its own energy, has taken Nature's
hint, and extracted full valtie from the asset* The
artificial canal across the natural isthmus provides a
much shorter and easier route than the Danish straits for
commercial traffic between the Baltic and the North
Sea, and German Commerce has the right to take every
advantage of this that it can, by giving its own shipping
rebates on the toll, rights of precedence in the order of
pass^e, or any other privilege that commends itself to
German economic theory, while alien commerce has
no right to complain of less favourable treatment in the
Canal, so long as the Danish channels are open to it*
If all the states that possess a sea-board on the Baltic
were to claim that by economic justice they ought to
enjoy equal rights with Germany in the nav^ation of
the canal that has been cut by that nation through its
own soil, Germany could of course with much greater
justice demand freedom of trade through the ports of
Be^um and Holland, which have been rescued from
the sea by the Netherlanders' dykes, on the similar
ground that they are placed more conveniently for her
manufacturing districts in the Rhineland than are the
German ports on the estuary of the Elbe* Both claims
would be unfounded*
352 RUSSIANS NEEDS
^'Nations, like individuals, enter into oompetitioo
with one another very unequally equipped, in respect
both of natural and of acquired advantages: like
individuals, they must accept the conditions as they
find them, neither making their own lack a justtficatkin
for robbing by force their neighbour's superfluity, nor
using their own strength to tyrannise over their neigh-
bour's weakness* So far as the Kiel Canal gives
Germany an economic ptUl in the commercial conq)eti-
tion of the Baltic, she has a right to make use d it :
Russia, if we win the war, must not be allowed to take
this advantage from her : but so far as it puts it in her
power by naval force to paralyse whenever she likes the
entire conunerce of other nations whose only oudet is
thiough the Baltic, and the commerce of the whok
World in so far as it wishes to do business with die
nations in question, it is a stumbling-block to Justia
and a menace to Peace*
'' We must devise a scheme, then, by which (a) the
province of Holstein shall remain within the German
frontier, and (b) the economic control and profits of the
Canal shall be left in Germany's hands, but (c) the
strategic control shall be taken from her/'
Having thus explained his standpoint, he will proceed
to formulate lus proposals* ** We can destroy Gei^
many's naval command of the Canal completely by
putting any single vital point along its course into the
possession of some alien military power. We must
choose a point which, while of decisive importance for
the Canal, affects as little as may be Germany's
interests in other quarters* This rules out the Western
terminus, for the power which commands that camiot
help commanding likewise Germany's chief artery of
Ocean traffic, the estuary of the Elbe* We are accord-
IN THE BALTIC 353
ti^y kft with Kiel, and the right power to hold Kiel in
trust for Europe is clearly the ' policeman * Denmark*
'' Denmark must maintain, at Europe^s expense, a ring
of the heaviest fortifications covering Kiel itself and
the last section of the Canal where it enters Kiel Haven,
^a^l^^t>g her at any moment to block the Canal against
armed German attack, and, if the attack presses her too
hard before help arrives, to blow up if necessary canal-
mouth and fortifications together, and to mine all the
sea approaches, thus putting the Canal out of gear for
an indefinite period. This fortified area in Danish
hands must be secured by a margin, broader than the
range of the most powerful siege artillery, which shall
be under the military authority of the Danish, and not
of the German, general staff.
^ The boundary of this zone ^ should start from the
Dano- German frontier you have already delimited
between Eckemfdrde Bay and the Eider, at a point just
West of the Schleswig-Rendsburg railway, and should
proceed Southwards parallel to the railway, crossing
the Canal at a point just West of Rendsburg. Thence
it shotild run South-East to the Brahm See, then East
to the Bothkamper See, then North-East through the
Post- and Selenter-Seen in a direct line to the Baltic,
leaving the town of Preetz outside.
'^ The administration of the Canal itself, its upkeep and
its traffic, both outside the ssone and within it, must in
any case remain in the hands of the German government,
and if possible the population of the zone should be
included, no less than the rest of Holstein, within the
political organisation of the German Empire for all
purposes of civil self-government, in spite of the
exceptional status of the territory in the military sphere.
^ See map facing p. 48.
354 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
But if such absolute separation between the military and
the dvil control of a district is in practice impossible^ and
military exigencies require that both administrations
should be united in the hands of the same govemmenti
then there is no choice but to detach this strip of
Holstein altogether from the body of Germany, and
allow a plebiscite of the popubtion to decide between
direct incorporation in Denmark, or * Home Rule '
under the Danish government, always leaving in the
hands of the German nation full property-r^ts over
the Canal throughout its whole length/'
With these suggestions our critic will conclude, and
it will be our turn once more to pass judgment. We may
first commend his fairness and moderation, and admit
our conviction that he has herein stated the strict
nunimum of precautions necessary to enstire all the
entrances to the Baltic Sea against any forcible attempt
on Germany^s part to seize the strategical command of
them* As far as the freedom of the Baltic is concerned,
it will tmder such an arrangement tDake no difference
whether Germany reverses her aggressive policy or
continues in her present courses. But the Baltic ques-
tion is only one factor, however important, in the
problem of European peace* For that problem's
general solution the future mood of Germany is of more
direct and vital importance still, and no Baltic settle-
ment, however perfect in itself, is worth the cost of
drivix^ Germany into exasperation in the hour of her
spiritual crisis, when other influences have so fair a
prospect of inclining her into the paths of peace*
The Kiel Canal is really a military weapon, like a
conscript army or a 42-centimetre gun* It is a part of
German/s national armament, and while we hope diat
one of the results of the settlement will be a scaling-
IN THE BALTIC 355
down of armaments all round, by a voluntary agree-
ment among the nations that possess them and an
honourable performance of its respective obligations by
each nation that becomes a party to an agreement of
sudi a kind, no one would seriously propose that the
limitation of troops to so many millions of trained men
or of guns to a maximum cahbre of so many centimetres
should be enforced by international police-commissions
established at all the recruiting depots and factories of
war material with authority to control the output and
with material power to give sanction to their commands*
^The imagination of such a thing is chimerical, and
even if it came within reach of realisation, it would
absolutely violate one of the most essential principles of
a settlement on the basis of national self-government,
that ikett must be no interference &om outside with a
nation's internal afiiairs* The cutting off of ikt Kiel
endave, though on the one hand it is a more feasible
project to execute, is on the other a far grosser violation
of national liberty and tmity* It involves, at least in
part and probably altogether, the detachment from the
German state of a considerable body of popubtion,
including the citizens of Kiel, a great port and dis-
tinguished university town, not becatise they desire
this severance in order to incorporate themselves in
another national group, nor even becatise ikt facts of
geography make it impossible to fulfil ihtit national
desire. They are' Germans in speech and in sympa&y,
the district forms an integral part of the German
province of Holstein, and the sole motive wotdd be the
establishment of a ** balance of power ^ in the Baltic, an
object in which they have no concern themselves, but
which is demanded by the interest of the Russian Empire,
a^Utical group with which theyare in no way connected*
356 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
This would be to inflict an injustice on one nadon
to the special advantage of another. It would be
parallel to the Dual Monarchy's treatment of the
Southern Slavs, to Russia's recent behaviour towards
Finland, and to all the other smouldering grievances of
nations, which have combined to ignite the present war.
Just as those had caused war in the past, so, even were
they all eliminated in the settlement, this alone would be
a new and most efficacious stimulus to war in the future.
The spectacle of Kiel under the military oontiol of
Denmark would be a perpetual incitement to Germany
to take up arms. The more intricate fortifications
Denmark threw up, and the heavier guns she placed
in position behind them, the more grimly Gomany
wouU toil to construct artillery heavier still, and to open
lines oi attack that would more than counter the Danish
lines of defence, and the more bitterly she would hate die
"Concert of Europe " that provided the Danish staff with
the material means for carrying out its commissioo,
and that brought pressure to bear upon the Danish
government whenever the latter indicated its wish to
resign an international office which involved it in un-
requited responsibility and danger. We should witness
a competition of armaments and an aggravation of
national antagonism more naked and direct tiun any we
have experienced yet : the crisis would be precipitated
by the harsh treatment of the German pi^mlation at
Kiel, provoked by their natural recalcitrance towaids
Danish administratiOQ and their eager collusion with
the German spy-bureau, or else by the imminent
completion of a Russian programme for buiUing op,
behind the Danish bulwark, a Baltic fieet more dun
stttMig enough to cope with the German naval force in
these inland waters now isolated strategically bom its
\
IN THE BALTIC 357
sister squadron in the North Sea. Either or both of
these causes would drive Germany to throw down the
gauadet once more to the rest of Europe, not this time
in hope but in despair*
The remedy, then, for the German command of the
Baltic entrances would ahnost certainly be worse than
the malady itself, and we find ourselves placed in a
dilemma : if we leave the Kiel Canal in the hands of
the German navy we cheat Russia of one of the diief
objects for which she fought this war, and &il to remove
a stumbling-block to her peaceful progress in the future :
if we take the Canal out of Germany's strategic control,
we cannot avoid measures that must exasperate her, and
create a new obstacle to her spiritual conversion* We
have, it seems, to choose the lesser of two evils*
In this choice of dubious alternatives we have one
dear beacon* Mechanical manipulations of geogr^hical
frocitiecs and political statuses possess, we agree, but a
secondary virtue : the sure foundation of Peace Ues in
the direct production of a healthy state of consciousness
in all the nations of Europe* J£ we adopt the former
alternative, and do not alter the present status of the
Canal, we afford the German nation the most favoturable
conditions for throwing off the disease which now
vitiates its spirit ; but a reformed Germany would no
longer desire to use for aggressive purposes the weapon
left in her hands, and so this psychological change,
when once it came about, would automatically remove
the grounds of dissatisfaction on Russia's part which
the policy entails* To remove them immediately we
must adopt the other alternative, and turn Germany
out of Kiel, yet we can only do so at the price of aggravat-
ing instead of alleviating her diseased nationalism, while
Russia's satisfaction, instead of providing a natural cure
3S8 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
for Germany's sickness^ would obviously promote it
still further, in exact proportion to its own intensity*
We conclude, accordingly, that we shall best serve the
cause of ultimate peace if we oppose ourselves to such
a drastic bbw at Germany's national strength and pride
as the military confiscation of Kiel* Our judgment is
tentative, but at least it seems to have logic on its side,
for it is surely inconsistent to say to Germany in the
same breath : *' Europe expects of you that you will
chai^ your heart, because that is her only hope of
securing Peace for the future," and ** Europe regrets
that she is obliged to take measures for the security of
her Peace, in case you should not change your heart
after all/' If we approach Germany in this insinoere
spirit our overtures are sure to prove futile*
Russia, then, must be persuaded to forego her
demands in part* The guaranteeing of Denmark and
her armament at international expense are both excel-
lent proposals* She is one of those small nations that
contribute much to European civilisation, and her
conservation will be a benefit to all Europe as well as a
partial solution of the Baltic question* But the transfer
to Deiunark of Kiel, though necessary for the im-
mediate solution of that question in its entirety, must be
rejected, because it would impose upon Germany a
humiliation much less justifiable and much more acute
than that which we are propositi to spare Russia in
the case of Finland*
B. The Liberation of the Black Sea
We have answered one of the questions with wfaidi
we started this chapter : Russia is fighting Germany
now for the liberation of the Baltic from German naval
IN THE BLACK SEA 359
controL We have tried to arrive at a compromise, by
which this control shall be vested in the hands of some
neutral power with effective sanction behind it, and
this to an extent which will finally sadsfy Russia without
alienating Germany once and for all* We can now pass
on to our second question : Why is Russia also putting
forth her strength against Austria-Hungary on behalf of
Russia's dominant motive is simple. She has looked
on for more than a generation while the Dual Monarchy
oppressed a small, weak, divided nationality, the
Southern Slavs, till the oppression has culminated in
an implacable war of annihilation against this nation's
largest fragment, the state of Serbia.
The treatment the Southern Slavs have received
arouses the indignation of every fair-minded spectator
who acquaints himself with their case, but the Russians
are not detached spectators. The Southern Slavs are
their closest kixismen ; they speak a variety of the same
tongue, and turn their eyes towards Russia for salvation.
The Germans, blinded by the menace to their own
aspirations, can only see in the Panslav movement an
engine of Russia's imperialistic ambitions. Herein
they greatly err : Panslavism was not bom of Russia's
pride and covetousness, but of the Tchech's and
Southern Slav's deep distress. It comes from their
lips as a cry for help, not from Russia as a solici-
tation to revolt; and it is in answer to this cry
that the Russian Nation has at last risen with a
unanimity undreamed of either by friends or foes,
and is sweeping westwards with the spiritual exalta-
tion of a Crusade to break her brethren's bonds.
Here, just as in the case of Belgium's neutrality and
France's loyalty to her allies, German policy has shown
V
36o RUSSU'S NEEDS
itself singularly obtuse to the psycholc^ of natioDS.
It has disastrously neglected the factor of Russia's
disinterested national enthusiasm in its estimate ot
military forces. Human motives are always complez,
and Germany was led into this miscalculation by con-
centrating her attention on a real, though subordinate,
aspect of Russia's intervention in the Balkans. The
concerted action in those quarters of Austrian and
Turkish rule does not merely challenge Russia's kni^t-
errantry by blighting the growth of the small Balkan
nationalities : it directly injures her economic interests
by blocking the exit from the Black Sea, while every step
the Balkan nations gain with Russia's assistance is a
further step forward for Russia herself on the road to
the open Mediterranean.
The Germans a^^ that Russia is preparing
patriarchal despotism under the cloak of fraternal
oo-operadon ; and that, if they are beaten in this war,
the only result for the Balkans will be to subsQtule
Russian for Austrian domination.
" We will not deny," they say, " that Austria, in
declaring war, intended to seize the railway to Saluuka,
and annex the whole territory through which it runs
as &Lr as the £gean ; but if Russia wins, she will aooez
the v^le Eastern coast of the Black Sea, and botb
shores of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, while she will
incorporate Routnania and Bulgaria in her empire,
in order to lead through them a railway of her own to
the Sea of Marmora or the £gean."
The persistent aloofness of both Roumania and
Bulgaria towards Russia's advances, ever since the
Treaty of Berlin, and the reserved attitude they have
taken up in the present crisis, prove that the German
argument is not altc^iether groundless.
IN tHE BLACK SEA 3^1
If the prophecy really came true, it would be a grave
mttfortune both to Germany and the Balkan states
themselves, and a violation of national rights and wi^es
fatal to the endurance of Peace, but we have already
sketched a series of arrangements calculated to make
Russian and German hegemony in the Balkans alike
impossible.
{u) The grouping of the six Balkan states into a
'^ soUverein '' which may develop into a defensive
alliance*
(ii.) The maintenance of this s^ollverein's economic
links with Germany throu^ Trieste, and the creatu^n
of new links with Russia through Odessa*
(iii.) The complete settlement of racial disputes
between the Balkan League and the Russian Empire,
by the cession of North- Western Bessarabia to Roumania*
None of these arrangements will stand in the way of
Russia's real objective, towards which hegemony over
the Balkans would be merely a means, — the Liberation
of the Black Sea.
The entrance to the Black Sea has been the strongest
naval position in the world through all history, but
never more so than at this day, when waterways can be
blocked by mines capable of destroying instantaneously
the most magnificent battleship.
The first section of the passage is the Bosphorus,
a winding strait eighteen miles long, and varying
from 700 to 3500 yards in width, with a strong
outward current flowing through it, and steqp blu&
overhai^ing it on either side. At the further end of
its European shore the hills sink, and a splendid harbour,
the ** Golden Horn,'' runs inland, protected from the
more open waters of the Sea of Marmora by the penin-
sula on which G>nstantinople stands. The passage
36a RUSSIA'S NEEDS
of about ijo miles dovn the Sea of Marmora, £com the
Golden Horn to the begmning of the Dardanelles, farms
the second section ; the Dardanelles thetsselvea an
ihe last. These straits are forty miles long : Aeir
average breadth ^ is considerably greater than dut of
tlie Bosphorus* but at the decisive strategical point
between Kilid-Bahr and Kaleh-i-Sultaniyeh they
narrow to 1400 yards, and inside this line thdr ampUt
windings provide good anchorage for la;^ warships
at Ni^ara and at Gallipoli. When you have put the
Dardanelles behind you, you have still to clear the
channel between Imbros and Tenedos islands, before
you really reach the open waters of the ^gean.
The free use of this extremely difhcult waterway is
of vital importance to all states possessing potts on
the Black Sea, principally, of course, to Rusta, vAto
depends entirely on this route for the export of her
wheat and her petroleum, but likewise to Roumania
and Bulgaria in their degree. And yet control of die
whole passage remains in the hands of Turkey, the least
civilised of all the Black Sea states and the only one of
them who has no commerce of her own. to give her a
Iq^timate interest in the waterway's economic utilisa-
tion. Moreover, she takes unscrupulous advantage
of its incomparable strategic qualities to push a policy
of adventure even more dangerous to the Peace d
Europe than the national chauvinism of Germans and
Magyars. Turkish chauvinism has no ideas behind it
or objectives in front of it, and is conducted with a
travesty c£ opportunism by ignorant and ill-educated
men.
The Turks have held this waterway for five hundred
years. They seized it first by the r^t of "stunt
' Three to four miles.
^
IN THE BLACK SEA 363
govemment/' and till 1700 their administnttion was
perhaps the most efficient, and the poptilation subject
to it the most civilised^ of any that bordered on the
Black Sea. But in the last two centuries the balance of
dviltsation and efficiency has been entirely reversed,
axid has turned the Turk's continued presence at Con-
stantinople into a scandal* He has not stayed there by
his own e£forts : he would have been cast out k>ng ago
if first Great Britain and then Germany had not feared
that his disappearance would merely establish Russia
in his place. Russia entrenched under arms on the
Bosphonis and Dardanelles would certainly threaten
German enterprise in Asia Minor and English com-
munications with India; but Turkey entrenched
there, besides putting Russia in such an intolerable
position that she will end it by war at the first oppor-
tunity, has again and again proved herself an in-
sufferable nuisance to England and Germany, her rival
protectors*
It is time that we abandoned altogether the dis-
creditable rdle (in which, for that matter, Germany
has already supplanted us) of safeguarding the most
sinister political interest in Europe, for if, at the oon-
dusion of this war, we attempt to keep the Turks at
Constantinople in face of a victorious Russia, we shall
bring about the very result we want to avoid. It is
a phenomenon of htunan nature that if people are
thwarted from obtaining their due by peaoeftd settle-
ment, they will take by violence not only their due but
much more besides. If we do not want, a generation
hence, to see Russia challenge all Europe to war for the
mastery of the Straits and of their whole Balkan hinter-
land, we must secure her the freedom of the Straits
witlx>ut delay. If we satisfy her just deihands, she will
364 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
not demand more than is just : boilers only eqilode if
you refuse to open the safety-valve.
In the Black Sea, then, as in the Baltic, we have to
devise some organ fdr holding the entrance in trust for
the states that have ports on the Black Sea coast, and
for the commerce of the whole World. In one way die
question is simpler here : there is no back-door, like
the Kiel Canal, between Black Sea and ^gean, and we
have only the sii^le passage to consider* Turkey has
sunk no capital in improving that, and we need have
no compunction in throwing her out, neck and crop,
without compensation. In another way it is more
difficult. Turkey does not merely control the Bbck
Sea as Germany controls the Baltic : she is in actual
possession of the strategical points, and there is here no
respectable, impartial policeman like Denmark, waidi^
on the spot, and ready to take up his duties as soon as he
is commissioned. Turkey cannot, without a European
catastrophe, be entrusted any longer with the points in
question, but when we eject her we shall have to
organise a brand-new administration in her stead : let
us begin by defining exacdy the territories to be
forfeited.
(i.) To control the Bosphorus, the New Administration
must take over both its shores, and also the shores of the
Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea for a certain distance
along both the European and the Asiatic side of either
entrance to the Straits. The European territory should
include the whole district of Constantinople, as far as its
boundary against the vilayet of Adrianople, that is, up
to a line leaving the Marmora coast midway between
Eregli and Silivri, crossing the Adxianople-Constanttfiopk
railway half-way between Chorlu and Chataldja, and
proceeding North to the Black Sea coast between
IN THE BLACK SEA 365
Istrandja and Onnanlu. The frontier of the Asiatic
territory should start from Deredje, on the Northern
sliore of the Gulf of Ismid^ and run N.N*E« till it hits
the Black Sea coast at Kilia.
(ii«) In the Sea of Marmora all the islands, and widi
them the peninsula of Artaki (Kapu Dagh) should pass
to the New Administration.
(iii*) At the Dardanelles it should be given authority
on the Asiatic side over the whole district of Bigha
(the *^ Troad *'), West of a line starting from the Gulf of
Edremid at a point on its North shore on the same
meridian as Aivali, and passing first over the summit of
Mount Ida and then in a general North-Easterly direc-
tion to the Marmora coast East of Demotika. On
the European side it should be assigned, not only
the Gallipoli Peninsula (** Thradan Chersonnesus **)
but sufficient hinterland to cover the peninsulars neck,
where it is lowest, narrowest, and strategically most
vulnerable* The line here should leave the £gean
at Ivridje burun, on the North shore of the Gulf of
Xeros, run North-East along the summit of the Kuru
Dagh, cross the Sayan Dere just below Emerli, and
thence proceed due East, over the summit of Mount
Pyrgos to Ganos on the Marmora coast.
(iv.) In the ^gean the Administration should receive
the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, which were left in
Turkey's possession by the Peace of London, because
they play an essential part in the command of the
Dardanelles*
The population of these districts is very diverse in
nationality. The peasants of the Troad, the lai^est
continuous mass of land within the Territory, form a
solid Turkish block, only broken by a few Greek
enclaves along the shore of the Dardanelles and of the
366 RUSSU'S NEEDS
Edremid Gulf. The islands, on the other hand, are
purely Greek, but their area is small. Constantinople,
which, together with its suburbs, accounts for the great
nujority of the Territory's inhabitants, is the most
cosmopolitan City in the World.
When the Turks conquered her in the fifteenth
centtuy, she was the focus of Greek nationality and
civilisation, and the modem kingdom of Hellas, vriiich
r^^ds itself as the Romaic Empire's heir, openly
aspires to raise its standard over the capital of the last
Constantine. But for four and a half centuries Con-
stantinople has harboured the government of the
greatest political power in Islam, and the honour of its
long-protracted presence has altered both her orienta-
tion and her character. She has drawn within her
radius lands further East than the rule of her Romaic
emperors ever extended, her population has been
enriched by all the races of the Ottoman Empire, and
Commerce has combined with Government to swell her
numbers ; but in this steady growth the Greek element,
handicapped by the Porte's disfavour, has not taken its
proportionate share. At present it stands at no more
than 153,000, perhaps 17.5 per cent, of the total popula-
tion,^ so that it is hardly superior numerically, while
decidedly inferior in wealth, to the flourishii^ Armenian
colony.
It is true that the present Turkish majority is lately
' The present populatioci of Coastantinople is estimated aa Gallows :
Moslems .... 385,000
\
Foreign subjects
Jews
Others .
153,000
44/100
13.000
874,000
IN THE BLACK SEA 367
artificial* It is mainly recnuted from two classes,
firstly £rom ** official circles '" with their immense
households and ** retired official circles ** in their palaces
along the Bosphorus, all of whom would automatically
migrate to the new Turkish seat of government, where-
ever it was established ; and secondly, from unskilled
labour, demanded in increasii^ quantities by the
docks, and supplied by the surplus of the Turkish
population along the Northern ooast of Anatolia* This
army of stevedores, though it has won itself notoriety
by its unruliness and fanaticism, and lent itself to Young
Turkish chauvinism by boycotting the shipping of
various foreign nationalities (a proof that Turkey is
no more fit to be entrusted with the conunerdal con-
trol of the Black Sea Straits than with their military
command), is really just as casual and transient an
element in G>nstantinople as the governing dass
It is probable, then, that if the Straits Territory were
cut off from the Turkish Empire and erected into an
independent unit, the Greek element would once more
become sufficiently preponderant to colour the wiiole
population, and would devote its political capacity, in
which it is undoubtedly superior to the other nationali-
ties, to organising the whole into an autonomous republic
on a Greek basis, and with Greek as its official language.
Therewith, in spite of occasional friction between
Greeks, Armenians and Turks, the question of civil
administration wotdd be more or less satisfactorily solved,
but that is really a minor problem* The distinctive
characteristic of this territory is its international im-
portance* Even in its social and economic life, the
139,000 foreign residents count for more than the
native inhabitants, yet it is not its internal condition
368 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
but its military importance for the rest of Eurq)e
that has led us to mark it off for special treatment.
Here our difficulties begin, and we will consider the
possible solutions of them in turn.
(u) We might simply demolish all existing fortifica-
tions, and organise no military force in the Territory at
all. But to leave the Straits defenceless would be a
mere invitation to all powers interested and well armed
to scramble for their occupation : we could not offer a
more potent apple of discord.
The freedom of vitally important international
communications can only be secured by a military
sanction so formidable that no individual nation will
have the means to challenge it, and it is Utopian to
expect that the several nations of Europe will consent to
that simultaneous reduction of armaments which is the
goal of our hopes. They will not do this till the balance
of armaments has already shifted from national to inter-
national control and the military force of the individual
states has ceased to be (what it tmdeniably has been until
now) the decisive factor in the political destiny of the
World.
Artificial compacts cannot, in themselves, limit the
contracting parties' freedom of action* In the last resort
they will always break the agreement if they can, and
try to get their own way by summoning up aU the
resources they actually command. When Sparta and
Argos proposed to settle their differences by a toumay
between three hundred chosen champions from either
dty, the Argive champions won ; but the result was
reversed when the whole Spartan army rushed in to the
rescue of their comrades, and took the more honour-
able Argive army off its guard* Fair play could only
have been secured if the lists had been commanded by
IN THE BLACK SEA 369
a dottn twentieth-oentury troops with a machine gun*
Cotttracts are only effective if there is a power in the
background that makes it worth neither party's while to
break their plighted word*
The necessary preliminary, then, to the reduction of
aafianal armaments in Europe is the establishment of
other armaments, controlled by some agency acdng
ftofii an impartial, tntemational point of view, at the
strategical keys of Europe — points which have such
military strength innate in their geographical disposi-
tion, that a comparatively small force stationed there
can act more decisively, ** to bind or to loose,"' than
the kd^iest forces of vrbick the separate European nations
or grot4>s of nations dispose* We have proposed to
install such a force at the mouth of the Baltic by guaran-
teeing Denmark and putting her in possession of the
necessary military positions, and we have a similar
duty to discharge at the Black Sea Straits*
(iL) Our problem, then, unfolds itself as the co-
ordination of a strong international military 0]^;anisation
with the k>cal Greek civil government of the Straits
Territory* Obviously the most desirable solution would
be that the Autonomous State should be subsidised,
like Denmark, to organise and maintain the military
defence of its own territory* It is a restricted and
unsatisfactory form of self-government that does not
esctend to the military sphere, and the friction between
the native dvil administration and the alien military
authorities, which we anticipated in the Kiel enclave,
would be more serious here in proportion to the wider
territory and larger population afiEccted. But unfor-
tunately, while the interests of Denmark and Europe
coinctde, those of Europe and the proposed Autonomous
Greek State do not* National self -consciousness
\
370 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
makes Dennurk wish for independgnce, and the
guarantee, the terriuiml gains, and the armament-
subsidy give her the best means of securing it ; but the
same inspiration of national feeling will make dte
Greeks <^ the Straits Territory naturally and justty
desirous of union with, and absorption in, the Kii^dom
of Hellas.
This is another instance \diere a minority must
suffer. If the Autonomous State had it in its power
to vote by plebiscite for union with the Kingdom, a
majority would inevitably be secured for that motioii,
and either Russia or Turkey or both would make the act
a cams bdli against Greece or even against the wbok
Balkan League, because it would falsify the eiqtecta-
tions under which they had originally consented to the
liberation and intemationalisation of the Straits. Even
if war were averted for the moment, it would break «U
in the end. The acquisition by the Balkan League of
this new asset would encour^^ it to start a policy of
adventure (the pohtical sense of the Balkan people is
still in its in&ncy), or worse still, the enlarged Greece
would break off bom the zollverein, and begin a still
more extravagant career on its own account. Tbt
Greek population of the Straits Territory must acocsd-
it^ly suffer, and, while enjoyii^ local autonomy, must
for^ the consummation of its national ideal. Yet «t
cannot expect the Greek temperament to suffer ^adtjr.
We have the experience of Krete to warn us, ^ete
Unionist activity made itself a nuisance to Europe for a
doven years, till union was achieved, and the &ct dut
separation was a wantonly inflicted evil in that case and
is a necessary evil in this, only makes it more imperative
that in this case the arrangement should be unswerving
maintained. The fortification of the Straits is essential
IN THE BLACK SEA 371
to the peace of Europe^ but to place these fortificatioiis
in the hands of the native Greek population would be
to invite a coup d*itat.
(ill.) We are reduced to search for some alien ex-
ternal military administration. One plan wotdd be to
garrison the territory with a composite force^ supplied
on some agreed system of proportion by the tiational
governments of Europe* We have recent precedents
for this in the joint occupation of Krete by four powers
from 1897 to Z909 ; in the ^^ asones of inspection/'
maintained from 1904 to 1908 in Macedonia, which
were unsuccessful, and did not even achieve their
minimum palliatory object of staving off a Balkan
war ; in the naval landing-^parties despatched last year
CO Skodra, which would probably have succeeded
in establishing law and order throughout Northern
Albania, if the present war had not brought about their
dispersal ; and, on a far larger scale, in the common
defence of the Pekin legations against the Boxers in
zgoo, and the composite expedition fitted out to relieve
them under single command*
Most of these cases of co-operation, however, were
only initiated in face of some ui^ent crisis, and all of
them were designed for a temporary purpose, to carry
out a limited task* The concerted defence of the
ItgiaLtioDS, in particular, was enforced by the fear of
instant massacre and the hope of speedy succour:
the fortifications were improvised, and of no import-
ance except to the refugees they sheltered and to the
Boxer fanatics they kept at bay* But we are now
proposing, as a permanent part of the machinery of
Europe, to put into the hands of national contingents
a system of fortifications stronger and more elaborate
than any other in Europe, which will be of vital interest
\
373 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
to the policy of the several national governments, to
whom these contingents belong.
A fortress demands the entire loyalty of its garrison,
the fcitiHIipg in them of a common spirit as wmng as
that of a wvship's crew. It is essential to its efficiency
that it should work smoothly under centralised direction,
and that knowledge of its organisation and funcdoning
should be the directorate's monopoly. Yet this loyalty,
which shows its colour most crudely in the m^tary
sphere but is likewise the badq^round of all social life, is
in modem Europe monopolised by the national state,
and men cannot serve two spiritual masters. The
supreme commandant, supposing that the diplomatic
custom were followed as usual, and the appointment
devolved auttmatically upon the doyen of the contingent-
commanders, would feel that he held the post in trust
for his government (a point ol view the other govern-
ments would not endoise). Each member of his cotn-
posite general staff, '"«««^?H of sharing a professional
enthusiasm for their common duty, would feel himself
to be an cUtacIU retained on the spot by his parbcular
government to report upon the secrets of his colleagues.
The contingents themselves would feel httle respect for
their superiors, and would regard the various positions
with which they were entrusted as precious additions
to the sacred soil of their respective fatherlands.
(iv.) A commandant, staff and personnel that had
no prior allegiance, would be relieved from this blot
position, and it might seem possible, by rectuitii^
citizens of all European sutes individually, and ofiefing
them a life-loi% career, to build up a service with i
tradition and a professional pride of its own. Experience,
however, is discouraging. Since national loy^ still
holds the field, some form of national service will attract
IN THE BLACK SEA 373
the nation's best men, and those that choose to bestow
their energies elsewhere will probably have a discredit-
able reason for so doing. Soon after the beginning
of British control in Egypt, the Egyptian government
attempted, with our sanction, to raise a cosmopolitan
force, but dropped the idea after a short trial* The
French Foreign Legion in North Africa has a per-
sistently evil reputation, and even the ** Papal Zouaves ''
in the middle of last century were notorious for their
bad behaviour, though they were inspired not merely
by mercenary motives, but by a spiritual cause which
had once no rival in Europe, and was then only in
process of being supplanted by Nationality*
To find an auspicious precedent we must go back
to the time when Christendom was struggling on the
defensive against the advance of Islam. In the
thirteenth century each nationality guarded its section
of curtain and tower along the walls of Acre,^ and
more than two centuries later national diversity was
still, as King Stephen had conceived it, a strengdi and
not a weakness, a spur to emulation and not a paralysing
blight, among the cosmopolitan Knights of St« John
in their last heroic defence of Rhodes.* Yet at that
very time the Most Christian King of France was o£fer-
ing his harbour of Toulon to the Turkish fleet, because
the Ottoman power was the greatest thorn in the side
of his nation^s Hapsbui^ enemy. The National Idea
was replacing oecumenical anardiy by parochial peace-
and^mity, and it was a symbolic incident when, in
1798, the armada of the French Republic One and
Indivisible, on its way to the conquest and condliation
of an enfeebled Egypt, extinguished the rule of the
Hospitallers* Order in its final refuge, the island of Malta.
* Fall of Acre, 1291 aj>. * Fall of Rhodes, 2523 aj>.
374 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
We hope for the birth of a loyalty and an ideal tbat
shall overshadow Nationality in its prime even moie
conqiletely than the Church overshadowed it in its
infancy ; but such a spirit is not abroad among us yet,
and it is useless to build up concrete cosmopolitan
organisations before its comity, for they will have no
vtrttie in them until they have received its baptism.
(v.) For the guardianship of the Black Sea Straits,
then, we must fall back upon the services of some
single ezistii^ national state. Though there is none
in this case that has a special interest of its own identical
with the general interest of Europe, as Denmark has
in the Baltic, we may at least hope to find one with no
special interest adverse to the interest of Europe, wfuch
we may induce to undertake the impartial conduct of
the task for the general advant^e.
As the question is primarily a European concern,
it would be reasonable te choose a European state
for the commission ; and, since the Great Powen
are ex hypothesi ruled out (the whole problem arisii^
from their mutual rivalry), our choice must 1^
upon some minor nation. But here, too, the piece-
(tents are disquieting. The Belgian customs-senrice
and the Swefhsh gendarmerie, introduced into Persia
to establish strong government, have not been equal to
their task there. They have no natural connection with
the country, and no power of influencing its destiny
on their own initiative : that power lies with Russia and
India, the great armed states immediately beyond its
frontiers. The Persian population reahses this, and
r^tly regards the Belgian and Swedish administraton
as secondary agents, put in by Russia and Great
Britain as a stopgap, to shelve the settlement of their
own rival ambitions. The two services therefore lack
^
IN THE BLACK SEA 375
that prestige and moral authority which are the only
invincible weapons of "" strong government ^^ in war-
ring against the chaos of the "' Dark hgt*^
The Dutch Gendarmerie, established last year with
such solemnity in the new Albania, has been, through
no fault of its own, a still more lamentable fiasco, and
there is no reason to suppose that if we place another
small European nation, for example the Swiss, in
command of the Black Sea Straits, the result will prove
in any way more satisfactory. In fact, it is almost
certain that Switzerland wotdd decline the proposal.
It would implicate her most unfairly in every cydone
that swept over the European horizon* She would
have constantly to make grave dedsioxis, and individual
powers might attempt to force her hand, either by
mobilisii^ against her frontiers at home, or combining
to bar her troops and officials from all geographical
access to the Straits* Her relations with the autonomous
Greek population, which would resent the control of a
state not immeasurably stronger than itself, would be
chronically strained. Neither Switzerland, nor any
other small power in Europe, is capable of tmdertaking
the charge.
(vi.) There is one recourse left, which is at least
worth tentative suggestion. President Wilson has
offered Europe the good offices of the United States
for mediation at the close of this war and for devising
arrangements that shall prevent war for the future.
Europe would do well to take President Wilson at his
word, and ask the United States to give her permanent
assistance of a very practical kind, by relieving her of
the concrete problem under discussion. The proposi-
tion would doubtless come to American public opinion
as a shock, for it has been a constant maxim of their
376 RUSSIA'S
foreign policy to incur no political obligations across
the Atlantic, and they will be more eager than ever to
maintain this principle, now that they have seen what
volcanoes underlie Europe's smiling sur£ace.
Great Britain, however, has pursued for a century a
policy of precisely similar intention, keeping her eyes
fixed upon her Empire and her social problems, and
refusing to intervene on the continent across the
channel, and yet drctmistances have been too strong
for her. In the present crisis we have been carried
into the storm-centre of the struggle, and America
herself, while she has avoided war, has by no means
escaped the effects of iu The financial business of New
York, no less than that of London, is at a standstill.
She must take to heart the lesson of this catastrophe,
and realise that for her, too, the phase of ** splendid
isolation ** has come to an end. The present hurricane
has bereft the ship of International Peace of her water-
tight compartments : the next breach in her side will
put the whole vessel in danger of foundering.
By taking this burden, then, upon their shoulders^ the
U.SJV. would be performing an act of international
generosity which would be the proudest record in their
history, but they wotild also be consulting their true
interest, which is fundamentally identical with the
interest of united Europe. They would be btlpiog to
assture universal peace.
From the objective point of view, there is no doubt
that they are admirably qualified to tmdertake the task.
They have no private interest in the Black Sea Straits^
and they are one of the strongest powers in the world :
their decisions would therefore pass tmchallenged by
all parties affected, especially as the self-denyir^ side
of the Monroe Doctrine and the attitude they are main-
IN THE BLACK SEA 377
taming in the present war, have won the U.S.A* an
imperishable reputation for impartiality. Moreover,
they have intimate connections with the population of
the Territory. Since the close of last century the most
enterprising and able-bodied peasants all over Eastern
Europe have been finding their way across the Atlantic,
undergoing the industrial metamorphosis, and returning
home with smart coats on their backs, strong boots on
their feet, and hard money in their pockets, to preach
the good tidings of this Eldorado in the West* America
is an even more present reality in the minds of the vast
uneducated majority in Turkey and the Balkans than
are the powers of Europe in the calculations of the semi-
educated minority that controls their politics. Yet
America has a strong footing among this important
dass as well, for the only thorough secondary education,
up to the modem civilised standard, that the inhabitants
of these cotmtries can obtain without resorting to the
foreign universities of Central and Western Europe, is
given by Robert College, the famous American fotmda-
tion on the European shore of the Bosphorus, which
opens its doors to students of all religions and nationali-
ties,^ and has been for years a beacon light amid an
inconsdonable welter of hatreds and particularisms.
The relations, therefore, between the American adminis-
tration and the autonomous population of the Territory
would be fotmded upon a strong tradition of respect and
good-will.
We conclude that America is the only power in the
world capable of accomplishing this mission, and that
the omens are in favour of her accomplishing it well.
1 This foundation for men is supplemented by the American College
for women on the Asiatic side of me Straits. It was originally opened
for Christian girb of all nationalities within the Turkish Empire, but
Moslems, too, have recently begun to send their daughters there.
378 RUSSIA'S NEEDS
The true solution, then, of &e Black Sea problem, would
be for Europe to throw herself on the United States'
iaercy» and ask them to accept her commission, until
she has built up among her various nationalities that
common European patriotism which alone can give her
the spiritual force to administer the trust herself. Those
acquainted with the American political outlook will
probably object that it is Utopian to propose sudt an
issue, however desirable it might be ; yet even if the
logical conclusion to which our ai^;ument has led us ts
no more than a rednctio ad absardtan of the prevailing
national antagonisms of Europe, it will at least point
the moral that Europe can only be saved by her own
efibrts, and that if she does not find an occasion for
setting her house in order in the settlement after this
war, she will never be able thereafter to arrest its
progressive rum.
^
THRACE 379
CHAPTER X
THE DISMANTLING OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE
We have seen that, by her presence at the Straits,
Turkey chokes the egress of all the nations fronting the
Black Sea coasts, which in every other respect have
severally achieved national self-stiffidency and inde-
pendence* This, however, is the least of her crimes.
The area within her frontiers is a veritable cockpit of
nationalities so mutilated that they have never even
achieved that unity which is the essential preliminary
to a national life*
Turkey in 19x4 is sailing in those shoal waters in
which Poland foundered in 1795, and if she wishes to
avoid Poland's shipwreck, she must promptly lighten her
drai^t by throwing overboard all superfluous cargo.
We shall have eased her coturse considerably by relieving
her of that solid bullion, the Territory of the Straits ;
but she must reconcile herself to making jetsam of less
cherished but bulkier properties as well, if she is finally
to dear the ree£i and make the open sea. We will pass
in review these bales of tetritorial merchandise.
A. Thrace
The carving out of the Straits Territory completdy
severs from the Anatolian body of Turkey die European
province of Thrace, left to her by the Treaty of London
and the subsequent compromise with Bulgaria that
followed the Second Balkan War. The population of
Thrace is predominantly Greek, and though there
1
38o THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
is a sprinkling of Turkish villages throughout, and
a considerable Bulgarian element in its mountainous
North-Wcst comer, Greek Irredentism has naturally,
and quite justly, kept the v^ole region inscribed on
its book of claims. Most of those claims are already
satisfied or else in process of satisfaction, but Thrace is
probably destined to remain a bad debt. The decisive
foctor here is Geography, and it assigns the territory
unmistakably to Bulgaria.
The natiural route of egress from the Bulgarian
hinterland to a door on the .^^ean follows the lines of
the Maritsa and its tributaries, &om their sources and
&om over the watershed beyond, to their triple junction
at Adrianople, and then proceeds due Southwards aloug
the united stream, to the ports of Ainos and Dedeagatch
on the East and West flanks of its mouth.
Adrianople was built with the express strategical
purpose of blocking this route. It was the bulwark
of the venerable Bysantine Empire against Bu^aria
in her Spring, and since the Berlin Treaty it has been
the bulwark of a Turkey galvanised into life against a
Bulgaria miraculously re-arisen from the dead. For
a few months in 1913, Bulgaria, for the first time in her
history, held the coveted prize in her grip, to lose it
again by her own folly, when the Turkish artny quietly
re-occupied the fortress during the war she had wantonly
provoked with her former allies. The compromise
which Turkey forced upon Bulgaria in her eztteniity,
confirmed the retrocession of Adrianople and Kiik-
Kilisse (its strategic complement) to the Turkish
Empire, and though Bulgaria retained the Sgeaa coast-
strip between the mouths of the Mesta and the Matitsa,
for practical purposes her road to the sea was cut off
again as effectually as ever.
THRACE 381
Near the Western end of .that coast there is the excel-
lent harbour of Porto Lagos, backed by the fertile
tobacco-growing plain of Xanthi, but this district
is separated from the upper valley of the Maritsa by
die immense barrier of the Rhodope motmtains, and
though from the port a narrow-gauge railway might
be engineered across them through Gimirdjina, Kir-
djaU and Haskevi to Philippopolis, it could never, any
more than the Bosnian railway, become a main artery
of commerce. The main economic route must con-
tinue to skirt the course of the Maritsa, and in fact a
railway already runs from Sofia over the watershed to
Philippopolis, and thence along the Right bank of the
river all the way to Dedeagatch, the port westward of its
mouth.
This railway was purposely led by the Turkish
military authorities through the ring of the Adrianople
forts, and thus, though Dedeagatch itself has passed into
Bu^;aria's possession together with the Right bank of the
Maritsa below Adrianople, its railway communications
with the Bulgarian interior are cut. It might seem
possible to avoid Adrianople by constructing an "' all-
Bulgarian "" loop-line from point to point on the Right
bank of the Maritsa well inside the Bulgarian frontier ;
but the low cotmtry suitable for railway engineering
between the river and the Eastern bastions of Rhodope
is narrow, and the Turkish military authorities quite
justifiably insisted in indudii^ within their frontier, as
rectified by the compromise, a wide radius of territory
beyond the Adrianople forts on the Right banks of the
Tundja and the Maritsa, on the ground that its pos-
session was essential to the defence of Adrianople
itself. This ^one stretches right up among the moun-
tain spurs : the loop-line would have to be carried by a
38a THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
tmar ie force over the shoulder of Rhodope, and even
then it could be cut at once, in the event of war, by a
force astride the natural line of communications at
Adrianople itself*
This simply proves that Adrianople excellently fulfils
its object, and that so long as it remains in Turkey's
hands, free communication with the JEgtan is denied
to Bulgaria. We proposed to meet the problem of
Hungary's railway to the Adriatic and Russia's to the
Atlantic by putting the politico-military and the eco-
nomic control in different hands, but a similar solution is
in this case impossible, because the Turkish government
is too uncivilised and tmeducated to refrain on the least
temptation from exploiting the brute force we should be
leaving at its command. Unless she can prove some
strategical necessity more pressing than Bu^iaria's
economic need for an outlet on the JEgean, Turkey
must evacuate Adrianople altogether. Till now she
has been able to allege the defence of the Dardanelles
and Constantinople, but when we have relieved her of
that duty by pladi^ these positions in the keeping of a
power, and tmder the sanction of a concert of powetSi
that neither Bulgaria nor the united Balkan League
would venture to impugn, the case for her presence at
Adrianople falls to the grotmd, and nothing remains
but to rescue Thrace at once from that misgovemment
which Turkish chauvinism has aggravated during the
past year in its impotent thirst for revenge*
The incorporation of Thrace in Bu^ana will not
benefit the latter cotmtry only : it will vastly improve
the condition of the whole population of Thrace. The
Greek elements will have to abandon their dream of
national retmion, which, in the bitterness of the Second
Balkan War, made them prefer the return of Turkish
THRACE
583
f, because it is by nature transitory, to Bulgarian
tent that is too efficient not to strike roots* But
le the Turk has made them suffer for their
iwn policy of possessing their souls in patience.
goaded them beyond human endurance, and
such a foil to the Bulgar that they may actually
once more as a deliverer, as they hailed him
the Autumn of 191a.
ly if we can install Bulgarian government in
again with the good-will of the Greek population,
make the future easier for all parties concerned,
their atrocious behaviour in the Second Balkan
is almost more than the Bulgarians deserve,
not rely on good feeling alone to settle the
question, but must safeguard the Greeks
province by the strictest guarantees for their
individuality* In fact, this is the least we
to satisfy public opinion in the kingdom of
vAndi has not yet risen to the insight of the
^'s political good-genius, the premier Venezelos.
ideed, recognises that the solution of all Balkan
lies in compromises rationally concluded
Lourably observed, and was always willing to
funder Bulgarian rule the Greek population of
itsa basin, if Bulgaria in return agreed that
;es of her own nationality in the hinterland of
should pass to Greece. The result of Bul-
uncompromising nationalism was the Second
War, by which Greece got more than her due,
(aria lost much of what she could justly claim,
id arrangement would at last make the
ke even, and allow the two nations to forget the
ttable relations of the past.
It Turkish elements would actually have less cause
N
384 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
for dreading the change than the Greek. The Turk
has found by eq;>erience that good government by the
fore^ner and the infidd is a happier lot than the I^k
Age of his native regime ; and the Bulgars have been as
successful in reconciling and assimilatix^ their Mosiem
f ellow-dtisens, of whom there are la^e numbers in the
North'-Eastem parts of the country^ as the Austrians have
been in Bosnia or the Russians in Turkestan. When
every Christian peasant in Bulgaria was called to the
colours in the Stmmier of Z912, the Moslem neif^bour,
whose services the Government did not demand for the
Turkish war, undertook to gather in the harvest on the
campaigner's fields. There is little doubt that if the
Moslems of Thrace pass tmder Bulgarian administra-
tion, their loyalty to their new cotmtry will soon be
equally intense.
The Bulgarians have no incentive to treat diis
minority ill : the battle of Lule Bui^as settled old
scores, and after the joint occupation of Salonika the
Greek eclipsed the Turk as the national rival. Protests
will come, not from the local Moslems, but from Turkish
nationalism across the Straits. Adrianople was for a
century the capital of the Ottoman State, and the tombs
of the Sultans are there : the sophisticated Ottoman
claims them as national monuments, and the city in
which they stand as inalienable Ottoman soil. No
apter example could be fotmd of the ai^;ument from
historical sentiment, and we have only to classify this
fallacy in order to dismiss it from consideration. The
desire of a living poptilation, and not the pride of dead
conquerors, must settle the destiny of Adrianople, asd
it will not settle it in favour of the Turkish Empire, b
Bulgaria's hands the tombs will be as well tended as the
whole province.
ARMENIA 385
The material advantage that would accrue to all
sections of the population alike is not open to doubt.
For the first time since the Goths crossed the Danube,
the country would be united economically with its
natural hinterland, and therewith the prosperity it
enjoyed in the second century after Christ would
assuredly return : roads and railways would be multi-
plied, and stock-breeding, vine-^n^wing and agricul-
ture regain their footing on its desolate downs.
After placing the national rights of minorities tmder
guarantee, we may accordingly hand over to Bulgaria
the sovereign rights of defence, communications and
civil government throughout the province, up to the
frontiers we have marked out for the Territory of the
Straits, with the one proviso that she shall not fortify
her new port of Rodosto on the Marmora coast, nor
establish a naval base therein*
B. Armenia
We have now cut back the Turkish Empire from its
encroachments on alien grotmd in the West : ^en we
turn to the North-Eastem frontier, we are faced with a
political anarchy and a racial chaos that demand more
drastic pruning still* The question of Armenian nation-
ality lies at the heart of this tangle*
The Armenians have shown an indomitable national
consciousness, and there are several strong factors to
inspitt iu The first is common religion, a variety of
Christianity with certain dogmas peculiar to itself, which
distinguishes its professors not only from the Moslems
among whom they live but from the international
Oiristian Churches in other parts of the World. A
second is common language, a branch of the Indo-
j86 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
European group that has followed a very indmdaal
development of its own, and produced a voluminoQS,
though chiefly ecclesiastical, literature. Finally diere is
the common tradition of a political independence wfaidi
endtured almost tmbroken for twelve centuries, and
occasionally played a decisive part in the history of the
World.
Unhappily this tradition was eactinguished mm
than eight centuries ago* Since then the only admifiis-
trative bond uniting the Armenian people has been the
organisation of their national Church, and the nation's
history has resembled that of the Jews. The A^n^
nians in Dispersion have prospered exceedingly. They
have shown an adaptability capable of assimilating
European ways of life, not merely the social supe^
fidalities achieved by tibe Young Turks, but the solid
f otmdations of spiritual ideas and technical skill ; and
they have fotmd the energy to turn their acquisitions
to account by rivalling and even outstripping their
European teachers in the economic exploitation of the
Nearer East, Their recent evolution has bridged the
gulf between Asiatic and European, and, like the rise
of Japan, tends to prove that the contrast between
** Oriental *' and ** Occidental ** does not express unde^
lying difference of temperament so much as differena
of phase in an identical process of growth.
Japan, however, in her awakening has mainly utilised
the political line of advance, while the political con-
dition of the Armenian peasant who has stayed at home
in his native mountain-valleys, has steadily been g(»ng
from bad to worse. Moslem govenunent has gives
the advantage to his Moslem neighbours from die
Zagros moimtains on the South-East, the quite bar-
barous nomadic Kurdish clans; and during the last
ARMENIA 387
generation of the nineteenth century the regime of
Abdul Hamid converted this inevitable tendency
towards official partiality into a deliberate policy of
inflaming a racial feud, and destroying the Armenian
nationality in the confl^ration* The Kurdish chiefe
were decorated with Ottoman military rank, and their
retainers enrolled as Ottoman irregular troops* Rifles
were distributed to these ** regiments ** in abundance,
while the Armenian population was prohibited under
the severest penalties from carrying arms* Then the
Kurds were let loose on the Armenians, as the Alba-
nians were let loose on the Serbs in the valley of the
White Drin* Village after village of native peasants has
been laid desolate, that the intrusive Kurd may pitch
his tents and pasture his flocks over the abandoned
fields : the concerted massacres which have shocked us
from time to time, are merely accentuations of a steadily
pushed process, which is successfully annihilating the
most civilised and industrious race in Western Asia, and
replacing it by the most idle, squalid and unruly*
The Armenian Dispersion lavishes its wealth in
building schools, supporting refugees, and stemming
^erever it can the tide of destruction, but it is powerless
against the brute force of Turkish government in posses-
sion* The situation is even worse tmder the new
regime than under the old, for the administration cannot
easily recall rifles recklessly delivered into Kurdish
hands, even if it has the yNiXL to do so, while Young
Turkish diauvinism looks askance at the Armenians'
success, and contemplates their disappearance with
satisnction*
The civilised World cannot zSord to let these out«
n^es continue, and if the two Central European powers
that have so far secured Turkey impunity are defeated
388 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
in the present war» the whole territory where this state
of things prevails must be severed firom the Turkish
Empire at once*
The true solution of the Armenian question is for-
tunately not difficult to discern* There is no possi-
bility yet of national self-government : the Armenian
peasantry constitutes only one half of the population
in this region, it is defenceless, and it is crushed by
persecution* The first requisite is efficient govern-
ment, inexorably just and irresistibly strong, which will
carry out the serious military task of disarming and
pacifying the Kurds, and proceed to establish law-and-
order throughout the land* Under the shadow of sudi
a government both races would for the first time be
free to increase, multiply, and inherit this portion of
the earth, according to their respective talents and
capacities*
** Strong govenmient ** of just the kind required
exists already immediately across the frontier, and
a large section of the Armenian population has long
prospered tmder it It has been the fashion in
England to depreciate the Russian administration in
the Caucasus* ** It was imposed,'^ we say, ** by re-
lentless warfare against small native mountain tribes
struggling for their freedom, and this sacrifice of blood
has not been justified by its results* On the one hand
order is far from being perfectly established (we re-
member the racial riots between Armenians and Tatars
at Baku in 1904-5),^ and on the other hand the national
development, not only of savage mountaineers, but of
civilised Georgians and Armenians, has been stifled
^ Though they are mot a fair exainple to cite, itiioe they were due to
the transitory phase of anarchy which swept during these years over
the whole Russian Empire, while agauist them must be set many decades
of continuously efficient admihistnitiQn*
ARMENIA 389
with a heavy hancL^^ But we have only to look at our
own ** North-West Frontier ** in India to see that
Russians work in the Caucasus has been the most
brilliant ttiumph of pacification in the nineteenth
century*
The British advance has stopped short at the outer
spurs of the Hindu Kush* We have debarred the hill-
tribes from makix^ a Uvelihood by raiding the Plains,
and subsidised them in compensation for their loss;
we enforce peace upon the road over the Khyber Pass,
fay which trade passes from India to Kabul—and that
is all, though those who have experience rightly account
it much* But Russia has boldly penetrated to the
Caucasus' heart, cut her military trails through its forest
slopes, and built her post road over its central pass of
Dariel from rail-head at Vladivkavkas to another rail
at Tiflisy where the Transcaucasian line passes on its
way from the Black Sea to the Caspian* Then she has
cxmnected these two railway systems by a new line
skirting the Caspian coast, and turning the range's
Eastern flank* Above all, and through all, she has
opened up the material resources of the whole territory
to economic exploitation*
It is true that Russia's Armenian subjects have
sufEered, like the other national minorities in the
Empire, from her mistaken policy of repression*
Just as the Poles found the efficiency of ad-
vanced Prussia more terrible than the slackness of
backward Russia, the Russian poUce in turn pressed
more hardly than the paralytic Turkish administra-
tion upon Armenian nationalism* Twenty years ago,
and again for a moment when the Turldsh Revolu-
tion kindled so many hopes, there were Armenians
who planned a national unification within a Turkey
3^ THB DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
deceatcalised after enlargement at the ea^ense of
the Russian frontier; but, as in Thrace, the Tuiis
themselves have eflTectually shattered such ddusions,
and there is not an Armenian now in the Turkish
provinces who does not pray for the coming of Russia.
Btrhmiadrin, the ecclesiastical cs^ital of the nation,
is already in Russian territory, and even wbUt
Armenian political ideah'sm still had a Turkish orieata-
tion, the actual political centre of gravity was auto-
matically shifting across the frontier* The Armenian
husbandman, ^en the barrenness of the mountains
and the ferociousness of the Kurds drive him to seek
his fortune abroad, naturally gravitates to the most
favourable market for his enei^es* He has found it in
Russian Caucasia, and this is the best testimony of all
to the virtue of Russian rule* Tiflis, the ancient
capital of the Georgian nation, has become practically
an Armenian city, boasting almost as large an Armenian
colony as Constantinople, while the population of the
native Armenian districts on the Rtissian side of the
frontier is now about a quarter as lai^e again as the
Armenian population in the Turkish provinces East
of the Euphrates and North of the Tigris, though it
occupies a territory of less than half this area*^
We must, therefore, attempt to hrixig within the
Russian frontier all Turkish territory where the funda-
mental population is Armenian, and where this popular
tion's prosperity is being mined by the lq[alised
aggression of the Kurds*
^ Annenian populatioa in Tiflis xSSfOoo
Armenian population in Constantinople • . xoz^ooo
Armenian population in Russian provinces Akfaaltsik^
Kars^ Alocandropol, Erivan^ Nacfaitcfaevan, Shusa • 75o/x)0
Armenian population in Turkish teiiitofy within limits
ARMENIA 391
This territorial settlement ^ of the national question
must take due account of the geographical factor, and
it would begin by assigning Trebizond to the Russian
Empire, because a great caravan route starts from that
port across the mountains through Baiburt to Er^roum
in the Armenian interior* The Lazic population of
the coast strip, though it is not itself Armenian, is
not Turkish either, but akin to the Georgians of
the Caucasus*' The frontier should accordingly start
from Tireboli on the South coast of the Black Sea West
of Trebizond, and run due South, excluding Karahissar
to the West, till it strikes the upper reach of the Kara Su
C' Western Euphrates *') at a point below Endngan.
Thence it should follow fhe course of the Euphrates
Southwards, as far as Telek, where the river hits the
Tatirus range running East and West, and slashes its
way through fhe mountain barrier in a long, tortuous
gorge, impassable for human traflic*
The Armenian race is not confined to the Eastern
bank of the Euphrates* When the Turkish avalanche
from Central Asia shattered the old kingdom of
Armenia in the eleventh century A.D*, a considerable
fragment of the nation migrated across the river and
beyond the open plateau of Malatia to the broken ribs
of Taurus further West, where the Sihun (Sarus) and
Jihun (Pyramus) come down Southwards between
parallel mountain-lines to the plain of Adana and the
sea* Here they founded a kingdom of Little Armenia,
^vbidi threw in its lot with the Latin principalities
carved out by the first Crusade, and took its full share
in the losing battle against the returning tide of Uam.
> See Map VL
* Diitcreuce of religjoOy however, prevents Laze and Geoffian €roai
sharing a coounon nat&mal conaciomncas. The Latcs are Modon*
392 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
All the Ghrisdan states alike were extinguished in
the fourteenth century, but the population did not perish
with the kingdom, and the Armenians have hdd tbeir
ground to this day in their second home* They have,
moreover, been reinforced by that more recent eaqiansion
from the original motherland, which has not aflEected
this South-Eastern comer of Anatolia alone, but has
endowed the urban centres throt^out the whole
Eastern half of the peninsula with strong Armenian
colonies*
Yet in spite of their vigour and their increasing
numbers, the Armenians have not made Eastern
Anatolia their own* The Turkish substratum remaim
the preponderant element West of Euphrates, as the
Armenian East of the river, and though the memory of
the terrible Adana massacres, perpetrated under the
Young Turkish regime in 1909,^ will cause us to take
the most stringent precautions for safeguarding the
Armenian nationality in the territories left under Turkish
government, it must not blind us to the actual numlkrical
proportion between the two races in this region* Bxcqyt
where professional brigands are subsidised for the tas^
like the Kurds across the river, it is only very weak
minorities that suffer massacre: what tempted the
Turkish masses to the crime, and justified it in their
own eyes, was the sense that they were in an immense
majority, and the hope that one determined stroke of
brute violence might rid them altogether of these hated,
progressive, alien tares in their uniform Moslem fiekL
In execrating their action, we must not forget that the
facts on which they based it remain roughly true*
Having reached the goq;e of Telek, the new frontkr
should leave the Left bank of the Euphrates, and proceed
* Len than a year after the proclamation of the Constttutioa.
ARMENIA 393
fiist North and then East along the watershed between
the Murad Su ('' Eastern Euphrates '0 ^^^ the upper
Tigris, formed by a ridge of Taurus aknost overhanging
the former stream, to a point immediately South of
Mush. Here it should abandon the ridge, and turn
through a complete right angle, taking a course due
South alot^ a line West of the Bitlis-Sert road, till it
strikes the Left bank of the upper Tigris. After reach-
ing the Tigris, it should follow its course Eastward,
past the junction of the Sert River (** Eastern Tigris '')
from the North, to the point where the united stream
turns abruptly South -East, and enters the gorge
between the Tor-Abdin and Judi Dagh ranges.
South-East of the basin of Lake Van and the course
of the Sert River the Armenian element does not
extend, and its limit coincides with the transition from
the Anatolian plateau to the Zagros system, of which
the Judi Dagh is the most North-Westerly spur. The
Armenians are here replaced by another Christian
popubtion, of di£Ferent race and sect, the ** Chaldaeans **
or ** Assyrians/*
These are descended, as their name implies, from
the earlier stratum of Semitic population in the
lower basin of the Tigris and Euphrates* G>n-
verted to the Nestorian form of Christianity in the
fifth and sixth centuries A j)« by missionary propaganda
from Edessa, they survived the oppression of the
fanatically Zoroastrian Sassanid dynasty, and
under the benevolent protection of the
Abbasid Caliphate of Bagdad* This era of pros-
perity was broken in the thirteenth century by the
terrible Mongol invasions, which ruined Arabic
culture* When Bagdad was sacked, the Christians
fled to the fastnesses of Zagros which look down upon
394 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
the Meaq;)oCaintan plain^ and the seat of their patriardi '
has been established sinoe then at Julamerk^ on the
highest teach of the Greater Zab* Most of the refugees,
however^ have not tarried on the Western slope of the
mountains, but have crossed the watershed into the
Urumia basint where they form the exclusive populatkm
of a coxap^ct district on the West shore of the lake*
Latterly the Chaldaeans have been exposed even more
cruelly than the Armenians to Kurdish barbarity, and
about half their villages on Lake Urumia have abandoned
their allegiance to the patriarch at Julamerkr and
accepted the Orthodox creed, in order to secure the
protection of Russia* The inauguration of Russian
^ strong government '* is in fact as essential to the
survival of the Chaldaeans as it is to that of the Armenians,
and the only solution is to include within the Russian
frontier the whole area inhabited by this race, in addition
to the Armenian plateau.
The distribution of the Chaldaeans, however, oom-
pletely cuts across existing political divisions. While
Julamerk is in Ottoman territory, the Urumia basin,
the nation's centre of gravity, belongs to Persia, and
the Turco-Persian frontier follows the summit of the
Zagros range* If, then, the whole Chaldaean nation is
to be united under Russia's aegis, the Russian frontier
will have to be advanced at the expense of Persia, as
well as at the expense of Turkey*
Fortunately, there is no obstacle to this, for Azer-
the North-Westernmost province of Persia,
^iriiich the Urumia basin lies, has no national
connection with the state in which it is at present'
^Ukt the Armenian Katholikot at Btchmiadztn, he is the political
as well as the reli^fious head of the nation.
"During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it several nmes
dUMged hinds between Persia and Turkey.
ARMENIA 395
poltticaliy incorporated* While the Chaldatans occupy
the Western side of the lake, the valleys that drain into
it from the East, one of which contains the important
town of Tabriz* are inhabited by an equally compact
population of Tatars, who were deposited there by the
Mot^ol dominion of the fourteenth century, and speak
a variety of the wide-spread Turkish tongue* lliese
have as little sympathy as the Chaldaeans with their
Persian masters on the South, whose Iranian language
they do not understand, and whose Shiah heresy they
detest. All their links are Northward, towards the
valley of the Aras, whence the railway is coming to
Tabriz from the present Russian railhead at Julfa, and
towards the broad steppes that fill the lower basin of the
river as far as Baku on the Caspian coast, where half
their race is already living contentedly under Russian
rule* The ^ole population of the province appreciates
the ** strong government " and the economic progress
vfbidi the de facto Russian occupation ^ has begun to
give them, and it would still further foster the advance
of civilisation here if the gift were assured by the formal
annexation of Azerbaijan to the Russian Empire*
At the gorge between the Tor-Abdin and Judi Dagh
ranges, the new Russian frontier should leave the course
of the Tigris, and proceed Eastward again along the
summit of the Judi Dagh, cross the Greater Zab below
Julamerk, where it makes an abrupt bend from a
South - Westerly to a South - Easterly direction, and
continue Eastward along the Giaour Dagh, till it strikes
the present Turco*Persian frontier at a point on the
same parallel as the South end of Lake Urumia* After
> Stfice I909» when the anarchy of the Penian Revolutictti led Russia
to send a mce across the frontier into Azerbaijan, where the situation
specuiily acute*
996 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
crosao^ the eaasdng frontier-line it should run South-
East^ excluding the whole basin of the Lesser Zab.
When it reaches the thirty-sixth parallel, it should turn
due Eastward along the latter, till it hits the headrwaters
of the River Kisil Usun, ^ose course it should follow
down continuously to its most Northerly point. Here,
where the river turns at a sharp angle to the South-
East, the frontier should break away again on a North-
Easterly course of its own, and maintain it till it hits
the present Russo-Persian frontier a few miles before
its terminus at Astara on the Caspian Sea.
The rectification of frontier we have just sketched
out to Russia's profit and to Turkey's and Persia's loss,
is unimpeachable from the point of view of the territories
and populations immediately concerned*
(u) It transfers nationalities, iii^ch, owing to their
geographical interlacement and to the lawlessness wfaidi
it stimulates, are in any case incapable for the present
of governing themselves, from a vicious inconqietent
government whose only policy is to foster anardiy by
encours^ng the inferior elements to exterminate tbe
higher, to a civilised '' stroi^ government " yAiidi has
already dealt successfully in the Caucasus with a similar
problem of even more serious dimensions* Ths
government, if we place it in control, will use its ex-
perience to secure the most enterprising, receptive and
industrious races in the region from artificial reprcssico
by brute force*
After a few generations of good government, the
Armenian peasant will have outstripped the Kurdish
shepherd entirely, not by another abuse of oflfidal
favouritism, but by his innate superior qualities* Every
patch of soil will have been brought tmder cultivatioii is
the valley bottoms and on the terraced moimtain-slopei
ARMENIA 397
of tke plateau, and the flocks of the nomad will have been
pushed up into the high bleak hills, where vine and
cereal can no longer compete with them* The popula-
tion will have rapidly increased, and the growth will be
to the account of the Armenian and not of the Kurdish
section, because it will go hand in hand with the ^;ri-
cultural development of the cotmtry* In the cruel
winters the Kurd will be glad to descend from his
mountain wilderness and harbour his sheep and goats in
the comfortable Armenian village below* His children
wiU frequent the local school (the Armenians may be
trusted to establish a school in every hamlet), learn the
Armenian language, and adopt in time, if they have the
ability, the Armenian way of life* Like the Romance-
speaking Vlach shepherds in modem Greece, the
Kurdish dans will be absorbed in the Armenian nation,
and ¥dule advancing in individual prosperity with the
advance of the whole country, will sink to the relative
position they deserve* They will cease to be a dominant
race, and lend their name instead to a subordinate
economic dass*
When this stage has been reached, the national
problem will have been solved* Armenia will be ripe
to enter the phase of "' Home Rule,*' and take her place
beside Poland and Finland as one of the self-governing
members of the Russian Imperial Federation*
(ii*) Besides securing the Armenians their spiritual
birthright, the proposed frontier has an economic
jtistification* It dosdy follows the ** divide ** between
the commerce that flows to the Black Sea and Caspian
ports on the one hand, and that which goes down to the
Gulf of Iskanderun and the Persian Gulf on the other*
This will become apparent when Western Asia has been
better equipped with railways than it is at present* As
398 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
omstniction prooeedst the frontier mil be found to
mark a boundary between independent systems, that
will only be crossed at a few points by trunk lines.
In spite, however, of these undeniable merits, any
proposal for such an extension of the Russian frontier
will meet with a storm of protest from at least two
quarters*
(i.) Russophobes in Great Britain will have taken
alarm already at the idea of ejecting the Ottoman
Government from the Black Sea Straits, and this
second scheme for docking Turkey on her Eastern
frontier as well, and installing Russia in full possession
of the Armem'an plateau, will put the last touch to their
fears. ** How,'* they will ask, ** can we expect Turkey
to act any longer as the bulwark of our Mediterranean
route to India, if we wilfully break her strength<^'
It will be sufficient for the moment to take these
critics entirely on their own ground, and reply that, from
the strategic^ point of view, size of territory is not die
ultimate criterion of strengdi. It is true that we shaD
have advanced the Russian frontier half the distance
from Kars to Iskanderun, but the other half still
remains, and Turkey, rid of her ulcers by the surgeon's
knife and enabled to devote all her strength to building
up her internal health, will erect a more formidaUe
barrier in this comparatively narrow strip of native
territory, than if she pushed a precarious, eiduusting
domination over intractable alien populations as far as
the very summit of the Caucasus.
(ii*) We have a mudi more serious opponent to con-
vince in Panislamism, which, so far as it concerns us, is
the public opinion of the Moslem community in India.
PANISLAMISM 399
C* Panislamism
The Indian Moslems have developed in latter years
a strong self-consciousness* Unlike most Moham-
medan populations, they are in the position of a minority*
The Hindu and Tamil mass threatens more and more to
engulf them, and in face of this danger they have put
their trust in British rule* They have devoted them-
selves loyally to the support of our ** strong government "
in India, and adopted our ideal for the future of the
** Indian Empire/^ With the increase of education
among themselves, and of means of communication
throughout the world, their interest has extended
beyond the limits of India to international politics, and
has natturally concentrated on the fortunes of Islam in
other parts of the world*
The spectacle that meets their eyes is melancholy*
Everywhere Islam is receding and Europe triumphant.
The battle for the penetration and possession of Central
Africa has been fought out between them in the nine-
teenth century to Islam's loss* The lAiolt continent
is now partitioned among European powers, and even
the ancient seats of Moslem civilisation along the
Mediterranean coast have passed under European
suzerainty, from Egypt to Morocco* In Central Aria,
during the same period, Russia, which once obeyed
the Tatar Khans on the Volga, has subjected the last
independent Khanates along the Ozus, and bridled
the freedom of the desert Turkomans*
As they survey the Moslem World, the Ottoman
Empire seems to them the only exception to the general
dMkle. It akme, in the &ce of all Europe, preserves
the old tradition that the Moslem is marked out by Gpd
400 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
to be ruler, and fhe Christian to be his slave ; and wfaat
is more important still to an orthodox Indian Sanm,
cut off from his fellow-believers by a ring of headien
Sikhs and Hindus, and of heretical Persians, the Otto-
man state is the guardian of the holy cities of Islain,
and the Ottoman sultan, by Itgai inheritance, the
official head of the whole Faith.
The grandeur of Turkey gives a concrete embodiment
to the Indian Moslems^ sentiment. They feel them-
selves to be a strong community, they have deserved
well of the British Empire, and in return they jusdy
claim the right to make their voice heard in its counsek.
There is no doubt that they will exert their influence in
favour of the Ottoman Government's point of view, and
uncompromisingly resist any proposal to interfere with
the integrity of the Ottoman &npire as it stands at
present*
We cannot neglect this attitude of Panislamism in
India. We must examine the ideals that underlie it,
and the view of existing facts on which it is based ; and
if we conclude that these ideals will not be realised
by the programme of supporting the present Turkish
regime, because the real situation in Turkey does not
correspond to the facts presupposed, we must franUy
declare our belief. We must try to convince Panis-
lamism of its error by argument, just as we have grappled
before with the attitude of Germany, or with the Dual
Monarchy's reason ffitre.
The real desire of Panislamism is that the BXoslem
populations which have so far preserved their inde-
pendence from Christian dominion should not suc-
cumb to the fate of the majority, but should on the
contrary so develop their material resources by economic
enterprise, and their spiritual wealth by educatioa, as
PANISLAMISM 40X
to nise themselves to a footing of equality with the
Euiopean nations^ and prove to the world that now once
more, as a thousand years ago, Islam has an indis-
pensable part to play in the advancement of civilisation*
This is a noble ideal* It is the vision of a national
regeneration in every sphere of human life, and
because of its very universality, it includes as an
incidental element the object of the British Rtissophobe*
The latter, starting from the selfish standpoint of
'' British interests,^' is led to demand that ** some power
with the mihtary capacity to protect its own frontiers **
shall interpose itself permanently between the Russian
Empire and the Mediterranean : the Panislamic hope
of a Tturkey renewed in every limb fulfils and transcends
this narrow, negative stipulation* Panislamism and
Russophobia show signs of making a strange oppor-
tunist alliance for the furtherance of their incom-
mensurate aims, and we can answer them both in a
single disputation* If the doubts of the Panislamist are
set at rest, his British ally may depart assured that his
own qualms are thereby satisfied*
We first reply to Panislamism that the policy of die
present ** Young Turkish '' regime is a mistake* Like
the chauvinism of Berlin and Buda Pest, it is the obses-
sion of a clique, not the interest of the people ; and now
that it has been given rein, it will carry the last inde-
pendent Moslem state into the same irreparable disaster
into which the Central European Empires are being
plunged by the present war«
The Turkish Govermnent still rules Christian sub-
jects, Greeks in Thrace and Armenians East of
Eiqphrates* If this really ministers to the Indian
Moslem's pride, it is a condemnation of his political
judgment rather than of his political morality, for the
402 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
opptfwon of Greek and Armenian is almoit out-
balanced by the su£Fering of the Moslem peasant on
whom falls the burden of holding them down by fioioe.
Turkey has only half the population ^ of the smallest
of the six Ettfopean powers ; she is infinitely poorer
than any of them, in eoonomic and social development
incomparably more backward ; yet no European state
exacts such a heavy blood tax from its citizens as Turkey,
whose people can least afiford it* The length of service,
both with the colours in youth and with the varknis
classes of reserve in later life, is in excess of most other
conscript armies,* and mobilisation is far more frequent*
On a partial scale, to combat the never outwearied unrest
of the subject poptUadons, it is practically chronic^ and it
occurs on the grand scale whenever the breath of war
begins to blow in Europe, even when, as in the pcesent
crisis, the interests involved do not naturally afifect the
Turkish people at all. This lu^pens because the sub-
ject populations are ever ready for the final war of
liberation, and because the neighbouring states are
always waiting for the opportunity to assist them* They
know too well the Turkish government's incurable
policy of adventure, which will not face acconqrftshed
facts, but still dreams of recovering Mitylene and Khios,
and perhaps of re-entering Sabnika*
Supposing that, through the tritmiph of the Central
European powers, the Porte were to recover all the
* No exact statistics have ever been taken, but since the territonal
losses of Z9za-z3 the numbers cannot much exceed ao,ooo,ooo.
* The terms of compulsory service for the infantry are as follows :
Active service with the colours « .3 years.
Active service in the reserve • 6 ^^
Landwefar service g „
Landsturm service 2 ^
Total service (from aoth to 40th year of age) ao
9P
PANISLAMISM 403
territories it held in Europe before the Autunm of X9Z2#
this success would bring the Turkish peasant nothing but
added misery* For him it would be a shouldering of
cast*o£F burdens : he would once more spend years of
hts life garrisoning Macedonia far away £rom his family
and his Anatolian farm, to perish at last most probably
in some futile summer campaign to ** Ottomanise "" the
untamable Albanians* The Turkish peasant is dumb :
he has no education or cohesion, and therefore no public
opinion : but if he could give expression to his will in a
plebiscite, he would vote for being left in peace, and ask
for some government which would not herd his folk out
oi their villages in thousands, and send them .without
commissariat, muziitions of war, or medical succour, to
perish in the deserts of Tripoli or on the stricken field of
Luk Burgas* Since he is too inarticulate to express
this, it is surely the mission of Panislamism, which has
the ear of the civilised world and knows how to address
itself to it, to speak for him and save him from his own
government, instead of encouraging that government
to exploit him to the detriment of his neighbours, and
the danger of the general peace*
The Porte claims the Indian Moslem's allegiance as
the protector of the Holy Cities* But here again let
him try his religious sentiment in the fire of reality, and
imaiffnt himself in the place of the unhappy Turkish
conscript, transported £rom his temperate upland home
in Anatolia to the military posts along that tropical
volcanic plateau of ** Stony Arabia '' over which the
Hejaz railway runs from Damascus to Medina, or
worse still, dispatched by troop-ship down the Red Sea
to the terrible, interminable Yemen campaign from
which no soldier ever returns ; or let him think of the
Yemeni Arab himself* Heir to an archaic civilisation.
404 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
isolated to an unparalleled degree by the deserts, he
IS not normally afiEected for good or evil by the rise
and fall of world-empires ; but now he is desperately
at bay against the brutal, meaningless aggression of
Turk^ Imperialism, which has no better gift for him
than for the Armenian or the Greek*
The Indian Moslem is misled by his own eacperienoe.
In India Islam is a nationality* Its professors may have
been Arab, Persian, Afghan or Mogul when they came
as oonquerors to the oountry, yet now they are ooe
blood, bound together by the common menace of Hindu
race-hatred* Conditions are different in the Ottoman
Empire* The menace of the Unbeliever is here imper-
fecdy realised, and national antagonisms find an arena
within the ** Bulwark of Islam*^' Otur educated Indian
Panislamist should talk to an educated Panarab from
Egypt, if he wishes to discover how Moslems of Arab
speech feel towards the political ambitions of their
Turkish co-religionists*
The Egyptian will agree with the Indian emphatically^
that the rule of the European is a humiliation for Islam,
and that British administration, however beneficial or
even necessary it may be for the moment,^ must be no
more than a transitory phase in the long history of
Egypt and India ; but he will tell him that he has e^>eri-
enced one thing worse than British occupation, and diat
was the tyranny of the Turkish official class, which
Great Britain ended just a generation ago* '' It is
only when I think what we su£Fered from the Turk,"
he will conclude, ** that I can find it in my heart to
tolerate his British successor*''
The founder of Islam was an Arab* He wrote his
* Though, except for the work of the irrigation engineers, he will bt?e
much less good to say of it than the Indian.
PANISLAMISM 405
Book in his native toi^ue, and his nation carried the
book and the religion it proclaimed to the Atlantic
on the one side and to Central Asia on the other* The
Empire they founded converted Islam from a frenzy
of outcast barbarians into a culture whose poetry,
science and philosophy are the foundation of all Nearer
Eastern civilisation to-day, just as the culture of the
Roman Empire is the spiritual basis of Modem Europe*
The Arab empire, moreover, like the Roman, was
broken in pieces by a deluge of rude invaders £rom
the North* The Turks, like the Teutons, had vitality
enough to realise the greatness of the civilisation upon
which they had stumbled, and to submit themselves to
its spell ; but they too lacked the genius to conjure back
to life the exquisite thing they had destroyed* The
confused attempts of Turkish dynasties to build up
again in brick the Arab palaces of marble constitute
the Dark Age of Moslem history* The house of
Othman, the supreme creation of Turkish political
strivings, is a house built upon the sands* It was
doomed to dissolution from the beginning as surely as
was the ** Holy Roman Empire*'^
When Sultan Selim I* conquered Egypt in 15x7, he
caused the last Arab Caliph of the Abbasid line, who
sheltered there under Mamluk protection, to bestow
the mande of the Prophet upon him and his heirs
for ever* The transaction was as unreal as that scene
in the Vatican, when the Pope, the highest representa-
tive of Latin civilisation, crowned Charlemagne with the
diadem of the Roman Empire which his predecessors
had trampled in the dust ; and the one inheritance was
no less fatal than the other to its recipients* Selim,
like Charlemagne, has had many successors of strong
will and able counsel, but they have su£Fered the tragedy
4o6 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
of the Hohenstaufen, and squandered the strengdi of
their empire in pursuii^ the wiU-o'-the-wisps of a dead
world's ideas.
Meanwhile, the Arab revival has been paralysed by
this heroic sham, as Italy was paralysed by ^e visitations
of the medixval Emperors ; and if the encoun^ement
of Indian Panislamism breathes misduevous confidence
into this sham once more, it will work as mudi woe to
all Islam, Arab and Indian and Turk alike, as the
triumi^ of its accomplice, the renovated Gernun
Imperialism, will work to Europe, if it wins this war.
Yet our Panislamist (or his Young Turk ptot^,
speaking through his mouth), while admitting all that
we have pointed out, will still put up a plea of hif^ier
necessity for the existence and policy of the present
Turkish regime. It will be very much like the apologia
of Piussianism, its ensample. " We confess/' he will
sadly begin, " that Turkish Imperialism frustrates the
material advancement of the Turkish peasant, and stunts
the national life of his Arab fellow-subject ; but it is
their common duty to bear these disadvantages patn'otic-
ally for the sake of Ishna. They must sacrifice them-
selves to support their government, because the Ottoman
Empire is the one sovereign independent state left in
bhun, and if this empire falls, the Menlem populations
it safeguards will be partitioned, like all their brethren,
among the Christian powers. Sudi an event might,
quite probably, increase the economic prosperity and
social well-being of the individual Moslem more
rapidly, for the moment, than the continuance of die
Ottoman administration ; but even the Christians have
a proverb that ' Man does not live by bread alone.*
For a ' mess of pottage ' the Moslem subjects of die
^Porte would be bartering away the birthright of Islam,
^Fortc w
PANISLAMISM 407
making impossible the great ideal of the futtire, a self-
goveming Moslem nation that shall hold its head as h^
as the nations of Europe/'
If Pamislamism takes up this position, we must
undeceive it still further* We do not call "' Young
Turkey ^' a sham merely because it taxes the strength
of the Turkish peasant in order to maltreat weak
Christian nationalities in defiance of strong Christian
powers, and to pose grotesquely as the successor of the
Arab Caliphate in the captaincy of Islam* In spending
the blood-tax wrung from the peasant upon objects
entirely alien to the peasant's interest, the government
of Turkey would be practising a fraud at least no grosser
than that committed by the two Central European
Empires against their industrial conscripts* The
supreme sham is the '^ strength and independence "' of
the Ottoman Empire itself*
The German government takes toll of blood and iron
from the German nation, to fashion from them a mailed
fist, quivering with a vitality that gives government and
nation enleagued not only security to walk their own
ways unhindered, but power to take the initiative in
evil Bggrtsaion against their neighbours* The mili-
tarism of the Porte, which impresses the Indian Moslem
and ruins the Turkish peasant with its wars and
rumours of wars, has no effect whatsoever on the destiny
of the Turkish Empire* Her army would not have
saved Turkey from annihilation sixty years ago, if
England and France had not fought the batde against
Russia in her behalf, and during the two generations
that have passed since then, Turkey, threatened with
destruction again and again, has owed her preservation
invariably to the mutual jeabusies of the European
powers, and never to the strength of her own right
4o8 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
arm* In 1877 the defence of Plevna, gallant ^aouf^ it
was, did not prevent the Russians from forcing the
Qiataldja lines : a diplomatic warning from the other
powers kept them out of Constantinople when the forts
were down, and the Treaty of Berlin rescued for Turkey
half her territories in Europe*
The Indian Moslems must face the fact that the Porte
is not the champion of Islam, but a parasite upon the
national rivalries of Europe* Turkey^s fate is not in
her own hands, and whatever be the issue of the war
that is now being waged between the European powers,
it will in any case expose the Turkish sham by patting
a decisive end to Turkey's present position*
But the Panislamist who has studied the relaticms
between the Porte and the European nations during
the last century, will be justified in forming the very
lowest idea of European political morality* The actual
survival of the Turkish regime until the present moment
is the most crushing indictment of it ; and the attitude
of all the powers to the calamities Turkish chauvinism
has continued to cause, has been so uniformly selfish
and cold-blooded, that even an impartial spectator might
plausibly ignore Turkey's guilt, and lay the responsi-
bility at Europe's door* In discussing, then, with an
Indian Moslem the probable behaviour of these natkms
towards Turkey after the present war is over, we shall
carry greater conviction if we leave any possible factor
of idealism out of the question, and assume that all alike
will follow motives of the strictest self-interest*
What has Turkey to expect from the respective tritimph
of the two rival groups of powers i
Ever since the rapprochement between France and
Russia nearly twenty years ago, Germany has been
offering her friendship to Turkey with increasii^
PANISLAMISM 409
earnestness* The two powers have fotuid a oonunon
object in their policy towards the Entente, and at the
present crisis Germany has put ready money, first-dass
warships, and skilled soldiers at Turkey^s disposal, and
persuaded her to join in a struggle the issue of which is
this concerted policy's success or failure*
If Germany had no other interest in the Turkish
Empire than its military value in the battle for the supre-
macy of Europe, Turkey might win Germany's gratitude
and her own advant^e by throwing her sword into the
balance; but the Tturkish sword weighs too light to
affect the scales* Its value to Germany is negligible,
and if the Entente is crushed it will vanish altogether.
In her inmost heart Germany looks at the Turkish
Empire, not as an ally in the war, but as the prize of
victory*
Turkey lies nearer than any other part of Asia to
Europe ; it contains temperate country suitable for
European colonisation, besides semi-tropical ootmtry
that can grow raw materials for Europe's industry, and
supply markets for her finished productions ; above all,
it is a dominant position in the strategical geography of
the World* Germany claims the ** Sick Man's " grati-
tude because she has saved his festering limbs from the
amputation which was their natural destiny, but she
has only done so because she has a more voracious
ambition than his former physicians : she purposes to
swallow him whole like a boa-constrictor, and digest
him without any preliminary breaking of his bones*
If Germany wins, the Porte may be maintained in
being for many years as Germany's cat's-paw, but the
Moslem nationalities, over whom the Porte rules, and
whose future is the hope of Panislamism, are doomed
to extinction* Germany knows that she cannot undo
4X0 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
Great Britain's work in Australia or New Zealand^ and
transform them into German lands : the vitality of the
new Anglo-Saxon nations we have founded there is
already too strong* Anatolia offers far better prospects.
Its cliioiate is equally temperate, while its poputation
is no match yet for Europeans in numbers, energy,
civilisation, or any other factors of survival* Turk and
Arab would vanish away before German immigratiofi
as the Red Indian faded before the Anglo-Saxon onrush
in North America, and the last hope of Islam would be
blasted by the first realisation of the Pangerman Idea*
Turkey may be linked to Germany by common
ant^onism towards the EnUnUp yet for ^e Moslem
nationalities the result of Germany^s victoiy would be
annihilation*
** But what,^^ our Panislamist will ask, ** if the Allies
are victorious i You have already spoken plainly about
dismantling the Turkish Empire, and if once you lay
violent hands on its integrity, I fear you will not
stop till you have achieved its dismemberment* You
reassure your Russophobe by promising that his de-
mands shall be satisfied, and reassure us by explaining
that the Russophobe^s standpoint is identical with our
own, but the flames of a war like this melt down the
established policies of nations* You hope to fof^e in
this furnace a Concert of Europe* Suppose you succeed,
and that England, France, and Russia pass beyond the
stage of opportunist alliance and arrive at a profound
mutual understanding : the Russophobe^s point of view
will have become obsolete in a moment, and the union
of Europe will be cemented by the partition of the
Moslem nationalities* The opiate of * compensation *
dulls the ache of the most irreconcilable ambitions^
France rested her daims on Egypt when England
PANISLAMISM 411
secured her a free hand in Morocco, and we can easily
forecast how the Three Powers will carve the Arabic
provinces of Asia into * spheres of influence/ and
actually bring sullen, defeated Germany within die
European fold (if their statesmanship rises to the
occasion) by offering her the coveted Anatolia as a
consolation/^
This is a shrewd interpellation, and it does even more
than justice to our lade of scruple; but it fails to
envisage the fact that this war, though it may have been
precipitated by the conflict between incompatible
applications of the same crude nationalistic idea, is
being fought out on the issue of incompatible ideals*
The cause of the Allies does not stand for the triumph
of one group of aggressively ambitious nations over
another, nor for the coalition of both groups in a
criminal conspiracy against the rest of the world : we
have identified ourselves with the victory of three great
principles —
(L) That the general peace of the world is our
sovereign interest, and that no political or economic
advantage of an individual kind is commensurate with it.
(ii.) That peace can only be secured by giving free
play to every manifestation of the spirit of Nationality*
(iii«) That national self-government, so far from being
inimical to foreign economic interests in the country
whert it obtains, is able to reconcile otherwise incom-
patible ambitions by giving them a neutral political
medium to work in.
The statement of these principles at last brings us
out of the wood* The realisation of self-conscious-
ness and self-government by the Arab and Turkish
nationalities in the Nearer East is not merely the
ultimate object of Panislamism or the ephemeral
4X2 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
programme of English Rtissophobia : it is one of die
most important foundation-stones of that ideal structure
of European harmony and international peace to wfaidi
Great Britain and her allies stand publicly pledged, and
which we cannot betray without forfeiting the sympadiy
of neutrals in the present crisis, and destroying all
confidence in our honour for the future* The Pan-
islamist may assure himself that not even the most
brilliant opportunity of immediate material gain would
tempt us thus to &lsify our ^ndiole position, while the
fact that adherence to these principles is the sole meaos
of winning the Panislamist^s trust and good-will, afibrds
a further proof to ourselves of the proposition from
which we started, that our own true interest lies in a
** disinterested ** effort to secure impartial justice to all
our neighbours. It is our part, then, to proclaim our
solenm intention of laying this stone true, and to sketdi
out a plan for fashioning it to fit its destined place.
D. The New Anatolia
Anatolia is physiologically a part of Europe, the
fourth of those mountain-ribbed peninsulas that reach
out from the European mass, and bathe their feet in
the Mediterranean sea. It is an immense plateau of
the same proportions and climatic diaracter as Spain*
An arid central upland is embattled against the coast on
North and South by parallel sierras, clothed in forest,
and rich in streams which are all engulfed, after a brief
course, either by the sea on the outer flank or the steppe
within : only towards the West does the plateau sink
in long, fertile river valleys to a clement, sheltered
coastline.
The aboriginal population of the region is a
ANATOLIA 4x3
in that chain of ^' Brachycephalic ^^ stocks which
occupies the Eurasian concatenation of mountains from
the Alps to the Mongolian tableland. It is distinguished
by its sturdy build, hooked nose, and ** sugar-loaf *'
skull* No race in the world's history has succumbed
so readily to the impress of foreign nationality and
civilisation, while none, perhaps, has shown such a
reserve of passive vitality, stich a power of perpetuatmg
its fundamental characteristics*
For more than two thousand years ^ the race was
exposed to the continually intensified influence of the
Greeks, the strongest nationality in the Andent World,
till the Greek language had supplanted all the native
dialects, and Greek civilisation become the standard of
Anatolian uniformity. Dtuing the last eight centuries
the Turk from Central Asia, the most vigorous race
that has yet entered the world of Islam, has conquered
this land from the Infidel and made it peculiarly his own.
The Turkish lat^^us^e, always one of the crudest in
the world, and the Greek, once the most exquisite,
match one another in nothing but vitality and proselytis-
ing power : they have meastured their strength in the
battle for the dominion of the Anatolian race, and the
Turkish speech has won. In Cappadoda (the Eastern
part of the plateau) the Greek dialects spoken by the
dwindling Christian section of the population are on
the eve of disappearance at this moment : their syntax
has already conformed to the Turkish structure, and
soon no trace will be left of them except a few fossils
in the local Turkish vocabulary. Even on the East
coast, Greek nationality nowhere now maintains itself
with any vigour except at a few ports like Smyrna and
if where it is backed up by the Greek sea-traffic
^ Pxom about zaoo b.c« to zo6o aj).
4X4 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
of the JBgtan and by the dose pioxunity of Greek
isldfids*
Yet though the Anatolian race has been converted
to the speech of its Turkish conquerors as completely
as it was converted to Hellenism before, and has adc^jited
the Moslem creed they carried with them, it has in-
formed its new religion and nationality with its own
peculiar spirit* The "' Ottoman '" peasant thus pro-
duced has litde in common with other populations that
hold the same faith and speak the same tongue — Tatars
of Baku, Kirghiz nomads on the Central Asiatic steppe^
or Kashgari villagers in Chinese Turkestan : we can
discern much more clearly his aflKnity with the Phrygian
or Cappadodan familiar to the andent Greek* He has
the same stolidity and lack of initiative (with thetr
complementary virtues), as antipathetic then as now to
the Levantine of the /Egean« He has even the same
trappings of material life, from his housing-system down
to the conical-hat and curly-toed boots that distinguish
the Hittites in ^yptian bas-reliefs ; and beneath this
exterior crust bum the same volcanic fires of religious
frenzy which gave the cult of Attis and the Great
Mother to Hellenism, and have forced upon Islam,
since Anatolia entered the Moslem world, the "" reviva-
listic'' ecstasy of the '^spinning dervisli,"" so extra-
ordinarily alien to Islam^s sober genius*
The Anatolian, then, has a marked national character :
he is also ripe for national self-^vemment. To us
the Tturkish Empire is a symbol of political ineptitude^
but three centuries ago our ancestors looked upon the
Sublime Porte as the most effident government in
Europe, and admired the solidity of its paved h^^
roads and nobly-arched bridges, the magnificence of its
karavansarais, mosques, and arsenals, the professional
ANATOLIA 415
skill of its fleets, artillery, and standing army, precisely
as Herodotus admired the far less ably oi^anised empire
of Darius* Since then the Turk has been outstripped
by Europe, but if he has stood still, he has at any rate
not lost ground* To govern oneself, moreover, is an
easier task than to govern an empire, and if the Turk
now confines himself to this, there is no reason why
he should not succeed as well as his former subjects
in the Balkans*
Anatolia will not become, any more than the Balkans,
an industrial country, and the Turk will always be a
laborious peasant rather than a keen-witted business
man, but the political problems set before him will be
simple* For four centuries the country has been in
profound peace, and law and order are as firmly rooted
there as in any state of Southern Europe, in striking
contrast to the anarchy into which race hatred has
plunged Macedonia and Albania, so much nearer to the
centres of Etuopean civilisation. Abdul Hamid first
conceived the fiendish idea of spreading this infection
to his Asiatic subjects, yet unlil^ the chronic violence
of the '' bands '" in Macedonia, the massacres of
Greeks and Armenians in the Anatolian towns have
not become more than hideous violations of a normal
harmony*
If official chauvinism, by murder, forcible con-
version, banishment, and that terrorism which leaves
no real alternative to emigration, were to succeed in its
object of eliminating these Christian populations from
Anatolia altogether, it would be dealing as fatal a blow
to the country^s future prosperity as the Castilian
government dealt to Spain, when it robbed her of her
Moors and Jews* At that period the Porte showed its
superiority to contemporary Christendom not merely
4i6 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
in efficiency but in liberality of soul, by giving tlie
Spanish Jews harbourage in its own commercial ddes,
to their contentment and to the advantage of their
adopted home* Since then Ottoman ** official drdes/'
in contradistinction to the Ottoman nation, have
deteriorated indeed* They are venting their fury for
their Balkan defeats not only upon the Greeks dF the
Thradan frontier, but upon the entirely unimplicated
Greek population of the West coast, and now that they
have pltmged their country into the great European
war, they may be expected to instigate fresh massacres
of their Qiristian subjects at any moment.
This governing class, with the hopelessly debaudied
tradition which has descended from Abdul Hamid to
the clique that overthrew him, must be swept away
before it can complete its disastrous work. The
Armenians and Greeks whom it is seeking to destroy
are an indispensable element in the progress of die
country. They possess all the qualities of brain that
the native Anatolian lacks, and they have furdier
improved their brains by education. To begin with, at
any rate, the new Anatolian national government will
depend largely upon them for its personnel, and they
will render faithful service to the alien country of their
birth if she grants them the scope which their abilitks
deserve. They are as able minded as are the classes
of corresponding education in Europe, they have
always been employed in the subordinate grades of
the Ottoman administration, and the greatness of the
Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
falls in lai^e measure to their credit* The Anatolian
Christian is the chosen vessel for the fulfilment of die
Panislamist's prayer, the elevation of the Anatolian Turic
to an equality with die nations of Europe.
ANATOLIA 417
The people of Anatolia must be given as free a hand
as possible to build up a native political tradition on a
new basis* The present government has taken the
opporttmity of the European war to denounce the
** Capitulations/' and the diplomatic representatives of all
European powers have protested s^ainst their action*
It certainly has no legal justification, and is but a further
exemplification of the existing regime's true character*
If, however, the immense changes we have proposed are
to any extent realised, we must do our part by letting
this protest lapse* In reimposing the Capitulations
upon a reformed national government of Anatolia we
should be committing a grave error, not because the
administration of justice will be pu^ed by magic of its
imperfections, but because any improvement of it will
be impossible so long as these humiliating exceptions
to its writ are maintained*
European residents in Turkey enjoy these privileges
by a historical chance, but Europeans elect to reside
in many worse-governed cotmtries without similar
guarantees* If, moreover, that vital artery of inter-
national commerce, the Black Sea Straits, be removed,
as we propose, from Turkish jurisdiction, the most
important European commercial colony which the
Capitulations serve to protect will be withdrawn from
the operation of Turkish justice*
Anatolia must start its new political life untrammelled,
yet political self-government is not the only factor in
the prc^ess of a cotmtry* If it is to play its part in
modem international civih'sation, it must also tap its
native sources of material wealth, and this can only be
done by the generous application of capital* Deposits
of minc^ ore are valueless till elaborate plant is brought
to bear on them by men with skill to work it* The margin
4i8 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
of the central steppe cannot be made to yield com again,
as it did in the eleventh century aj)* before the Turk
came^ till the motmtain torrents have been made to
deliver their last drop of water to the husbandman by
irrigation-canals below and barrage-storage in the high
valleys, and till reapii^ machinery has been imported
from Lincoln or Chicago* Neither grain nor metal
can be brought within reach of consumers till mine and
field have been put into communication by rail with the
port on the coast*
These operations must be carried out before a single
atom of wealth can be extracted from the resources
they are intended to throw open, and their installation
is very costly* They can therefore only be tmdertaken
if some surplus has been saved from wealth previously
produced by another source or in another quarter.
Such surpluses do not easily begin to accrue, but once
they have started, their effect on the production of
wealth is so immense that they grow by geometrical
progression*
The nucleus of that capital which in little more than
a century has transformed the face of the world, was
accumulated by the middle class in the nations of
Western Europe, after they had put wars of religion and
constitutional struggles behind them, and arrived at a
strong national government which set them free to turn
their best energies into economic channels* The force
that resides in capital, the magic power of transforming
the earth and of conjuring wealth from its bosom, has
placed the rest of the world at Europe^s feet ; but in
Turkey, as in other countries that have lagged behind
Europe in political advance, such accumulation has
never been made* Aimless wars of adventure have
continued to keep the peasant living from year to year
ANATOLIA 419
on the verge of ruin, and the Greek and Armenian towns^
folk, who had the intellectual and moral capacity for
achieving as much as the European middle class, have
been singled out for repression by the Turkish govern-
ment* Turkey must borrow the capital she requires,
not from her own citizens, but from Europe ; and
Europe, finding that she holds a monopoly of this
commodity with which Turkey cannot dispense, is not
disposed to offer her a market on easy conditions.
The history of exploitation in Anatolia centres round
the construction of her railways*^ Immediately after
the Crimean War an English and a French company
acquired concessions for lines which started from
Smyrna, the natural capital of Anatolia on the middle
point of the West coast, and worked Eastwards up the
river valleys on to the interior plateau* The French
line has now been pushed up the Hermus valley through
Ala Shehr (Philadelphia) to Afiun Kara Hissar, and
the English line up the parallel Maeander valley to the
south throt^h Aidin to Qiivril and Buldur** Germany,
however, since she supplanted England and France in
the Porters friendship, has blocked the further advance
of these two railways by securing the concession for a
railway to Bagdad.
The German line starts from Skutari, the Asiatic
suburb of Constantinople in a remote comer of Anatolia,
and makes its way Southwards past Ismid to the
plateau level at Eski Shehr, across a very difficult series
of mountain ranges among which the Sangarius winds
in gorges* Thereafter the way is plain to Afitm Kara
Hissar, and the line proceeds South-East along the inner
Vf > See Map VL
f-V'The two lines reached Kassaba and Aidm respectively in i866.
See Map VI.
V
430 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
edge of Taurus through Konia to Bulgharlu, a village
at the foot of the Bulbar Dagh, where the Taurus wall
begins to ttim Nortb-East, and the railway, if it is to
continue its oiuise, must pierce it by a mighty tunnel.
As £ar as this tunnel, the line has been in working order
for some years.* Its achievement is a triumph of that
co-operation between individual capital and national
diplomacy by vriiich modem Germany has effected so
much. Besides pointing the way to the promised land
beyond the Taurus, it absorbs such internal trade as
already exists in the section of Anatolia to the North-
East, except for the little that goes in and out by the
Bladi Sea coast. Connection with the French rail-head
at Aiiun Kara Hissar is carefully avoided, so that
all tiafiEc which reaches that point from the East is
oon^xUed to pass the vriiole way along the German line
to l^taii instead of takii^ the natural route to Smyrna.
This masterly railway is the most potent instrument
Germany has foiged for diverting all new wealth tapped
in Anatolia into German pockets, and finally turning the
country itself into a G^man-peopled land. Yet this
policy is not peculiar to Germany. It is only a particu-
larly successful instance of whzt all European nations
attempt, with more or less singleness of aim and persever-
ance, so soon as a well-placed loan brii^ a more back-
ward country into their power. It is usury in the most
sinister sense, conduct^ on a national scale.
Honourable investment aims at an increase of wealth
< Tbc ooacaaion for die txttaaoa n Bagdad was unedta Jamatr
1900. jlKCddBtantuioptt-unudsecDoiiivaiooQiiHftcdascnff asi87%
•nd estendcd to Kotua after 1888 by die Anatolian Raihray Cmofaaj.
This was M first a combined Gennano-British concern; but the
German poop aoon bou^t out the Britisb rigba, and proceeded to
obnin the B^dad concwwon. They then ce^nised a new " Bagdad
Railway Coo^pany " to which the Anatolian Railway Company"
'- of thecontraa.
ANATOLIA 4ai
which shall bring the investor a just profit out of the
surplus thereby created : Usury forces the borrower
to pledge all that he has, up to many times the value of
the loan, trading on the fact that he cannot do with-
out borrowing at the moment* It hopes, not for his
success, but for his ruin, because its quarry is the pledge
and not the interest : its object is achieved when it has
got the victim into its power, body and soul* The
plentifulness of capital and the competition of investors
have made usury on the individual scale an almost
obsolete evil in modem Europe, but the centralisation
of capitalistic control has introduced it into the inter-
course of nations* It gives the stroi^ a subtler, more
business-like means of oppressing the weak than the
clumsy warfare of mere diplomacy and armaments*
Since Peace depends ultimately on Justice, our ideal
of making Peace secure will not be realised till we have
exorcised, not only "' blood and iron,'" but National
Usury as well*
It is neither possible nor desirable to confiscate
foreign capital in Anatolia. That would be an inde-
fensible breach of faith with the bond-holders, and the
worst folly from the point of view of the country's own
interests, for it would close to her the coffers of inter-
national finance at the moment when she needs to dip
more deeply into them than ever* We must devise
arrangements by which foreign enterprise shall secure
profits advantageous enough to evoke it to the full extent
of Anatolia's needs, without enabling it to seize the
paramount economic control, and thereby the ultimate
political dominion, of the Anatolian national state*
The most powerful foreign authority to which the
material resources of the Ottoman Empire are at present
subject, is the International Administration of the Public
433 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
Debt. Turkey's allies in the Crimean War tattght her
how to borrow in the European money market, and a
reckless period of extravagance followed. When it
terminated towards the end of the 'seventies in the
Balkan revolt and the disastrous Russian War, Turkey
found the purse-strings dosed against her, and became
unable either to meet her past obligations out of her
revenue or to incur others to liquidate them. The
result was the Decree of December 1881, which oon-
solidated the whole outstanding debt, handed over die
problem of dealing with it to a mixed committee, con-
sisting of delegates from the bond-holders of all the
interested nationalities, and put at the absolute disposal
of this committee, in which the Ottoman Government
itself had no footing, six classes of pubUc revenue for
the debt's service.
This international administration has wielded for a
generation a power far greater than any single foreign
government has yet acquired in Turkey, or could ever
acquire without the virtual supersession of Turkish
sovereignty ; but it has employed it entirely tt> the
country's benefit, just because it does not represent
the sinister interest of national rivalry, but the common
interest of bond-holders of all nationalities to co-
operate with the Turkish people in order to promote the
increase of the country's resources upon which all alike
have their respective claims. The commissioners have
interpreted their mandate in a liberal spirit, and some
of the most fruitful economic developments that Turkey
has experienced in the meanwhile have been initiated
in the spheres tmder their control, and financed by
funds accumulated in their coffers. Whatever political
transformations the Ottoman Empire may tmdergo,
the finandal authority of the International Admints-
\
ANATOLIA 423
tration must remain unimpaired, not only out of
justice to the foreign bond-holders, but because its
continued activity will be the New Anatolia's best bul-
wark against exploitation by individual nations, and the
best guarantee for the continuance of her economic
progress on lines primarily advantageous to her own
citizens*
But there are other, and less legitimate, forms of
foreign privilege in Turkey which might well lapse with
the dismantling of the Empire, or at any rate be allowed
to drag less heavily upon the freedom of the rejuvenated
Anatolia*
(L) It is not enough to give the new Anatolian
government judicial independence by abolishing the
Capitulations, tmless we give it fiscal independence as
well, and that is at present seriously limited by a
number of treaties with the various European powers,
iniiicfa fix a maximum ad valorem import duty for the
Turkish Customs* It might be argued that if European
thrift has been hit so heavily by Turkish insolvency,
it is only fair that Europe should be given the chance of
recouping herself by obtaining favoured treatment in
Tturkish trade* Yet European merchants have already
gained infinitely more by the customs-treaties than
European investors lost by the bankruptcy, while the
latter interest is actually prejudiced by die present
arrangement, for the Customs were one of the six
revenues ceded to the Debt Administration, and their
augmentation would profit the European bond-holders
as well as the Anatolian government* Even in equity,
then, the statas quo has litde justification, but legally
there is no case for it at all* Most of the treaties
lapsed over twenty years ago, and have only been
maintained in operation by the cynical refusal of the
434 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
powers oonoemed to discuss their modification* In
fact, the Powers^ attitude towards Turkish finance has
rested latterly on their ability to exercise coercion.
The time has now come to cry quits. In 1907 the
first step was accomplished, when Turkey obtained per-
mission to raise the import duty to iz per cent*, in order
to pay for the special administration of Macedonia
demanded by the Powers themselves. This is a good
precedent for compensating the Anatolian government
(and its European bond-holders) for the loss of their
most important source of Customs revenue in the
Black Sea Straits, by setting them at liberty to fix
their tariff at whatever rate they choose within the
sanctuary of their reduced frontiers. The authority
of the Debt Administration gives security that the con-
cession would be used with prudence, and even a mis-
taken fiscal policy would only injure Anatolia herself,
and could be regarded with indifference by Europe, so
long as the vitally important waterway to the Bladk Sea
was excluded from its sphere of operation.
(ii.) The foreign railway companies, in framing their
contracts with the Government, have stipulated that the
latter shall guarantee them a certain minimum of annual
profit, calculated at so much per kilometre of permanent
way in working order. The Government has to make
good any deficits on this amotmt.
Considering the poorness of the country and die
irresponsible character of the Government, which by its
provocative foreign policy was capable of disorganising
at any moment such trade as there was, it was reason-
able that Turkey should shoulder the economic conse-
quences of any political folly she committed.^ li,
^ The system was not applied to the earlier railway enterprises in the
Ottoman empire. It was only initiated in z888, when railway axh
ANAtoLlA 425
howvftt, under a new regime the annual average of
Anatolian trade increases, and the country schools itself
to a more reassuring political tradition, the risk to bond-
holders will gradually sink to the same average as in
Europe, and the survival of the ** kilometric guarantee **
will leave them with an unearned advantage, while
retaining the Anatolian government under an tmmerited
liability* When this stage is reached, the public opinion
of the European nations will be at fault, if it does not
permit the cancelling of the guarantees before the term
fixed by the contracts*
{in.) The Anatolian nation can most effectively parry
the political danger from foreign railway enterprise
by establishing a ^'balance of power'' between the
companies of the different nations concerned*^
At present the German concession threatens to
dominate Anatolia. After cuttix^ diagonally across
the country from the Straits to the Taurus, it is to
proceed through the Cilidan tunnel (which is being
excavated at this moment) to Adana, the urban centre
of the largest and most fertile Anatolian coast-plain,
whence two lines already run to the ports of Mersina
and Iskanderun.* It will thus include the two most
important strategical positions in the peninsula, Afiun
K^ Hissar, the central node of communications, and
the Glidan tunnel, the door through the chief barrier
between the country's two most important pieces of
coastline*
stracdoa, although urgentiy needed for the development d the ooontry,
had oome to a standstill because no foreign investors would tat thor
capital^ and its adoption certainly brought the required capital into
the field. The scale of guarantee is fisted independendy for each oon-
ctmkm, and there is no umifonn rate.
>SeeMapVL
*A British enterprise compleied in x886 and bought out by the
Oeman compaii^*
436 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
It would be feasible to demand that the German
company^ in return for adequate compensation else-
where^ should resign its claim to the sections of the
railway South-East of Konia* It is clear that these
sections are not economically desirable in themsehres.
The first runs through a desolate strip between steppe
and mountains, the second is the costly tunnel, ^di
will eat up any profits the Adana section beyond it
may bring in* Their importance to Germany is political,
and in asking her to resign them in exchange for
economically more advantageous openings in another
direction the Anatolian government would be safe-
guarding its own interests without violating the legiti-
mate interests of Germany* The German company
would be more than compensated by receiving the
monopoly of all construction in the well-watered but
at present entirely undeveloped Cappadodan region
North-East of the central steppe, as far as the new
Russian frontier* A branch has abready thrust itself
Eastward from Eski Shehr to Angora* Hence it oodd
be carried across the Kizil Irmak River (Halys) and
might split thereafter into two arms* One would stretdi
E*S*E* through Kaisaria to Malatia on the West bank
of Euphrates, skirting the ribs of Taurus on the Nordi ;
the other would work its way North-East through
YozgSLt and Amasia to the Black Sea port of Samsun*^
What nation is to step into Germany^s shoes, and
^ The startling advantage gained by Germany in the Anatolian Rail-
way ooatract led Russia to obtain an agreement from Turkey rcajuving
to her own enterprise the construction of all railways in Anatolia that
should debouch on the Black Sea coast* As yet, however, she has
taken no advantage of this concession, and if she gained the proposed
extension of her Caucasian frontier to the West and Soudi she bu^
fairly be asked to abandon economic interests in Anatolia ootnde ths
new line, in exchange for com|>lete political and ecooomic oostrol
it.
ANATOLIA 427
secure for its own investors the right to buy out
the German company^s interest in the Konia-Adana
section^ Every consideration suggests Italy. Italy
has suffered even more than Germany by being handi-
capped in the European race* Her Abyssinian adven-
ture was disastrous; her recent acquisition on the
North African coast gives her a very limited field ; in
the interest of Balkan independence and European
peace we have proposed to deny her expansion across
the mouth of the Adriatic into Albania, and finally
we have asked her to relinquish her aspirations to her
Istrian and Triestine ** irredenta/^ in deference to
Germany^s need for a neutral economic outlet upon
the Adriatic. If, then, the Anatolian government, for
reasons of its own, decides to remove a certain region
from the sphere of German enterprise, Italy has surely
the best claim to fill the vacant place, and receive the
commission of opening up Anatolians resources in this
particular direction*
Italy, moreover, is already in negotiation with the
Ottoman government for a railway concession in the
hinterland of Adalia, the only port on the South coast
of Anatolia to the West of the Adana district that has
practicable lines of commtmication through the Taurus
with the central plateau* One branch of the new Adalia
railway would run N.N.W., and meet the English
company^s railhead at Buldur: another would work
across the mountains in a North-Easterly direction, and
emerge after many detours at Konia. Konia would
thus become the junction of three railway systems* The
German lines from the North would meet at this point
the two railways leading to Adana and Adalia on the
South coast, and it would be an obvious convenience
that the latter should be under the same management*
4a8 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
We have su^ested the partition of Anatohan railway
enterprise among companies of four different naticmali-
ties, French, English, German, and Italian, co-ordiiut'
ing their spheres in such a way as to give no one of them
the opportunity of becoming a political power in the
land. The bond-holders and the governments behind
them, instead of regarding their economic presena in
Anatolia as the thin end of a political mdge, must
count it all gain that they find scope for theii enterprise
there at all, and resign themselves to see their bold
diminish annually, as the country is gradually raised
by their agency towards the level of narive wealth viach
will enable it in the end to dispense with their services
alt(^ether. On the day when she has accumulated
enough capital to buy out all the foreign companies at
a generous price, and enough human skill to administer
their enterprises with a national personnel of her own,
Turkey will have reached her majority, and fulfilled
the Panislamist's dream by taking her stand on an eqiul
footing with the nations of Europe.
We have now only to mark out the frontiers of the
rejuvenated Anatolian state, before we pass on to
Arabia. On the North-West towards the Black Sea
Straits and on the North-East towards the Russian
Empire, they are already defined : we have still two
questions to consider, the sovereignty of the Islands
and the frontier towards Arabia itself.
(i.) The islands off the AnatoUan coast ^ into
three divisions.
(a) The group along the Northern section of tile West
coast, whidi is entirely Greek in nationaUty, and was
conquered by the Kingdom of Hellas in the late Balkan
War. It consists of Mitylini, Khios, Psara, Samos
and Nikaria. In spite of the Young Turk chauvinists,
ANATOLIA 429
these islands must remain united with Greece, since
that is the unanimous desire of their inhabitants*
(6) Those along the Southern section of the West
coast, stretching in a chain from Patmos to Rhodes
(the "" Sporades **) and including the stragglers Asty-
palia, Karpathos and Kasos besides* This group was
occupied by Italy in the course of her war against
Turkey in 19x2, and she stipulated in the treaty of
Lausanne that it should remain in her hands till Tripoli
had been completely evacuated by Turkish troops, after
which it should be restored to the Ottoman government*
Italy has shown no signs of relinquishing her hold,
but Europe must make the sanction of the Adana and
Adalia concessions conditional upon her doing so* The
islands, however, must not pass s^ain into the hands of
Turkey* They are as Greek as the Northern group in
speech and feeling* The New Anatolia must resign all
claims over them to the Concert of Europe, and the
Concert must assign them to the Kingdom of Hellas.
(c) Just at the comer where West and South coasts
meet, the tiny rock of Kastel6ritsa lies in the lee of the
mainland* Its population makes a considerable liveli-
hood by the Mediterranean sponge-fishing industry,
which attracts its sailing-boats as far afield as the North
African coast, and it is intensely Greek in national
sentiment*
Kastel6ritsa is the smallest Greek island : the largest
is Cyprus* It, too, lies off the South coast, but further
to the East and far out to sea, its outer flank being
roughly equidistant from Adalia, Iskandenm and
Beirut*
Till Turkey entered the war, the status of Cyprus
was similar to that of the Sporades* It dated from a
secret agreement, concluded between Ttirkey and Great
430 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
Britain in June 1878, after the close of the Russo-
Turkish war and on the eve of the Berlin Cos^;ress«
The Russian victory had alarmed Great Britain £>r
the safety of her Mediterranean route to India* She
therefore arranged with the Porte that if Russia retained
the Armenian fortress of Kars in the settlement, the
island of Cyprus should be placed in British hands.
The legal sovereignty was to remain with the Sultan,
and Great Britain tmdertook in return to guarantee the
integrity of the Sultan's continental dominions in Asia,
within whatever frontiers were fixed at the impending
Congress*
The terms of the Berlin Treaty brought these
provisional stipulations into force. Russia kept Kars,
but the British guarantee vetoed her further advance
towards the Levantine coast : even should the guarantee
prove abortive, the occupation of Cyprus left Great
Britain in strategical command of the situation.
At the rupture of peace, however, the Berlin Treaty
lapsed with all its corollaries, and Cyprus was formally
annexed to the British Empire.^
Russophobes will rejoice at the step, because it brings
Cyprus completely under our control* "" According to
your own proposals,'^ they will say, ** the resettlement
after the present war is to advance the Russian frontier
right across the Armenian plateau, at least half the
distance towards the Mediterranean shore. This makes
the retention of Cyprus more important to Great Britain
than ever it was before/^
Yet the problems of Cyprus and Armenia are comr
pletely on a par. In bodi the national factor is at
\
i Ths transfer of legal sovereignty to the actual pogeasor was parallel
to the Austrian annexation of Bosnia in 1908. It was merely a farmal
act. Austria, however, was at peace with Turkey when she took the
step, and therefore acted in violation of valid
ANATOLIA 431
variance with such strategical considerations, and if in
Armenia nationality is to prevail, we must defer to it in
Cyprus likewise* The war has set us free to dispose of
Cyprus, as well as to retain it* We shall choose the
former alternative, if we are wise*
The island has benefited much by our strong govern-
ment (a process of disinfection which every country
needs to go through, when it passes out of Turkish rale),
but that phase is now almost past* The population is
Greek in language and civilisation, and is becoming
more and more so in national aspiration*^ It cannot
be separated permanently from the Greek national
state* At some moment Great Britain must gracefully
retire, and we should allay irritation if we were to
proclaim forthwith tmder what circumstances we should
consent to do so* The natural term to fix would be the
moment when Anatolia buys out her foreign railways*
When she has so far recruited her native economic
strei^;th, she will afford such an effective strategical
bulwark for the British route to India that the Russo-
phobe will sleep in peace at last*
Thus all the islands off the Anatolian coast would
pass eventually into the hands of Greece, and the
continental state might justly complain that if Greece
were allowed to fortify them and convert their harbours
into naval bases at her pleasure, Anatolia would virtu-
ally be subjected to a continuous blockade* The pass-
age from Smyrna itself to the open sea would be liable
at any moment to be dosed by flotillas actii^ from
Mitylini and Khios on either flank* In handing over,
therefore, to Greece the islands nowin Italianoccupation,
Europe should stipulate that not only they, but those
acquired by Greece in 1912, and also Cyprus whenever
* The population was 337,000 in Z90Z, of whom 33% were Moslem*
432 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
she may acquire it, shall be neutralised from the military
point of view : Greece on her part must promise Europe
to leave them unfDrtified, and Europe on hers mus:
guarantee their perpetual political union with Greece*
When this is done, it will be both needless and useless
for Anatolia to covet the possession of the islands any
longer*
(ii.) In drawing the frontier between Anatolia and
Arabia, we must compromise, as usual, between national
distribution and the configtuation of the country* The
line^ should start from the Mediterranean coast at Ras
al Hanzir, the cape that contains the Gulf of Iskanderun
on the South-East* It should run first North-East and
then North along the summit of the Amanus range,
parallel to the coast of the gulf and only a few miles
distant from it, thus assigning Iskanderun itself to
Anatolia* When it reaches the latitude of the most
Northerly point in the gulf, it should turn East, cross
the valley of the Kara Su, and proceed North-East again
along the summit of the Kurt Dagh* Thence it should
follow the divide between the Pyramus and Euphrates
basins in the same direction, till it reached the latitude
in which the Euphrates makes its great bend from a
Westerly to a Southerly course, below Samsat* At
point it should turn due East and head for the Euphrati
striking it just at the bend*
This line leaves a fringe of Turkish population outside,
but the districts this minority inhabits are geographic-
ally dependent on the great Arabic dty of Aleppo^ and
cannot be sundered from it politically*
^ See Vbp VL
ARABIA 433
E* The New Arabia
We have now to deal with the remainder of the
Ottoman Empire, which forms an indivisible geo-
graphical unit*
Since the beginning of the present geological period,
the heavy rain and snow falls of the Armenian plateau
have been furrowing out the Euphrates and Tigris
systems for their issue, and grinding away the surface
of the mountains to deposit it as silt at the head of the
Persian Gulf, under the Western lee of the neighbour-
plateau of Persia* In the cotirse of ages the rivers^
action has made the sea give place to an alluvial plain
hardly less level than itself, nearly four hundred miles
long and about a third as much in breadth*
If we compare this land of Irak-Arabi (the ** Shinar ""
of the Bible) to the orchestra of a Greek theatre, we shall
find the auditorium in the gently-tilted plateaux that
rise from the plain in a great semicircle to the West and
South* From the point where they ascend above the
irrigation-limit of the rivers, these plateaux become
waterless desert, producing at best a sparse crop of
grasses in the spring, and presenting at worst a surface
of shifting sand-hills, or of basalt botdder-fields, the relic
of volcanic upheavals* As the barren shelves mount
away from the rivers their slope becomes steeper, till
finally it culminates in agreat retaining wall of mountains
which rises higher than all, and then plunges straight
down to sea-level on its sheer Western face*
This mountain-rim of the desert falls into two sharply
contrasted sections* Syria, in the North, abuts upon
the Mediterranean, and the West winds from the
Atlantic carry their moisture down the whole length
434 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
\
of the Inland Sea to surrender it in life-giving rain when
they strike Lebanon and the ** Hill country of Judah ''
on its extreme shore* Syria shares the climate and
vegetation of Southern Europe, but the Hejaz, idiich
continues the line of Syria towards the South-East,
is backed by nothing better than the Red Sea, a sultry
creek separated from the Atlantic by the vast breadth
of the Sahara. Here the desert has no redeemmg
Western fringe, and the strip of coast beneath the motm-
tain wall, along which lie the ports of the Holy Cities
of Islam, is the most cruel ootmtry in the whole region*
In this stem theatre has been played the world-<irama
of the Semitic Race* Bred in the keen air of the pitiless
plateaux, which gives men the fire of vitality without the
fuel to maintain it, the Semitic nations in wave after
wave have surged down into the arena of Irak, or beaten
upwards against the breakwater of the Syrian mountains,
to scatter themselves in spray over all the Mediterranean
shores* The last and mightiest of these catadysms
was Islam, whose tide in the seventh century a*d* swept
out from the Hejaz over the world ; and, though it has
bng since receded from its furthest marks, it has settled
permanently over this original Semitic area, and given
it its final colour both in religion and nationality*
In spite of a few surviving outcrops of earlier strata,
the present population of the region is as homogeneous
as its permanent geographical structure* Arabic speech
and Moslem faith provide an adequate basis for a new
national life, and materials for the superstructure itself
are ready to hand* The civilised urban class of the
Syrian towns has sent repr^entatives of considerable
pohtical ability to the Ottoman parliament, and is no
less capable than the Anatolian Turk of carrying on the
functions of self-government on its own account* Its
ARABIA 435
own constructive efforts will be immensely reinforced
by the co-operation of talented and highly-educated
volunteers from Arabic lands like Egypt and Algeria,
whose populations have enjoyed the benefit of European
** strong government/' and will welcome the oppor-
tunity of propagating its fruits without its thorns in this
new independent focus of Arabic tradition* Moreover,
the ** New Arabia '" will not be the spiritual centre of
the Arab race alone* By taking over from the Ottoman
Empire the guardianship of the Holy Cities, it will
inherit from it the primacy of the whole Moslem world*
The sovereign of the new state will become the official
head of Islam, and Arabia would do well to elect as
its first constitutional sultan some prince of the reigning
Ottoman house, who would inherit by birth the personal
claim to the Caliphate won by his ancestor SeUm, and
transmit it to his heirs. This junior branch of the
Ottoman line would soon eclipse its cousins who con-
tinued to rule over Anatolia, and the Arab would oust
the Turk again from the dominant place among
Mohammedan nations*
Yet however much assistance the new nation may
receive from the loyal sympathy and service of aU
Islam, the task before it is not easy* The Arabians
will inherit more evil than good from the Ottoman
Empire*
Europe must, of course, free them from the bondage
of the Capitulations and the customs-treaties, vnih the
same UbtrHity for which we have appealed in the case
of Anatolia ; but they will have to shoulder a heavy
burden in their proportionate share of the Ottoman
national debt, and will pay for the follies of a ruling
class for which they are even less responsible than the
Anatolian peasant*
«6 THE DISMANTLING OF TURKEY
The revenues ceded, by the decree of z88z, to the
international Administration of the Debt must be left,
as heretofore, tmder the Administration's control, in
spite of the break in political continuity* The surveil-
lance of an expert European executive over the chief
factors of native finance will indeed be as great a boon
to the New Arabia for many years to come as it has been
to the moribund Ottoman Empire during the last
generation* The native government will be able to
devote itself to internal problems of nationality, which
are ultimately of more importance and immediately
more within its scope*
(i*) The Christian minority falls into several groups,
of which the Maronites in Lebanon are consider-
ably the most important* Descended from the older
Syriac race, they have preserved their dialect and
religion ever since the Arabs brought Islam into the
land* In the eighteenth century they entered into full
communion vnth the Roman Church, and came thereby
into relation with France, already the leading Catholic
power* The French influence was confirmed by the
result of the Crimean War* In 1864, not many years
after peace had been made, there was a rising of the
Maronites in defence of their prescriptive autonomy,
and France insisted upon the erection of an autonomous
Lebanon-vilayet, which was placed under a Christian
governor nominated by the Porte, but was also guaran-
teed by Europe* The Maronites constitute about three-
fifths of the population in this favoured area*^ Thanks
to their native history and to the French missions, they
are at once the most vigorous and the most intelligent
element in Syria, and however optimistic we may be
' There are about 300,000 of them in the Lebanon, and perhaps
half a million in the whole of Syria*
ARABIA 437
of the New Arabia's success, we must on no account
allow the Lebanon to lose its special status*
Not only must the Maronites' autonomy be preserved :
it must be extended, if possible, in a more rudimentary
form to the remnant of Monophysite ** Jacobites ''
scattered through the provinces of Urfa, Diarbekr
and Mardin, and to that fraction of the Nestorians that
has ventured to leave its mountain refuge in 2^gros
and the Urumia basin, and to setde among the Moslems
in the lowland district of Mostd on the Tigris* Unlike
the Maronites, these fragments of more Easterly com-
munities are sadly broken in spirit, but their social
condition has been gready improved of late years by
the splendid American missions* The revival already
manifesting itself among them may even spread to the
neglected and isolated litde sect of Satan-worshippers
who dwell West of Mosul in the Sinjar hills, and secure
for them a similar recognition*
(ii.) While there is no friction between the Qiristi