A RN O LD
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T O Y N B EE
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WITH MA NY
COL OU RED
MA PS
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A ND
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T O R ONT O
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MCMX V
SO N S
L TD
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P R EFA C E
TH I S book is an attempt to review t h e problems of
Nationality in the area a ff e cted by th e War My
principal object has been to present the e xistin g facts
in their historical setting and where these facts are of
a psychological order as they so often are I have
tried to reproduce sympathetically the diff erent nations
conflicting points of view
Some readers will regret that I h ave not confined
myself to narrative altogether and will resent the will
“
and ought that pun ctuate the was and is
I would answer them that this practical app lication is
the justification of the book
National questions are of absorbing interest at all
times to the parti cular nations they concern ; they are
of o ccasional interest to the professional historian who
touches 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 s people exclaim when a
problem is thrust upon their attention and finding no
answer th ey hark back to their own aff airs
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 aff air of life and death The war has exploded the
mine upon whi ch diplomatists have feared to tread
and we are wal king in a trance across ruins S o lv itur
a m b u la n do or else we break our necks
Th is is my apology for laying down the law and it
will clear up a further di fficulty whic h mi gh t otherwise
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vi
NAT IONAL I TY AND THE WAR
use trouble
When you change from present to
”
future
readers will say
which do you mean to
e xpound—what will happen what may happen or what
o ught to happen é
Certain ly not what will happen
If we win is
t h e implied hypothesis of every sentence I have written
a hypothesis that baffles prophecy If I become cate
go rica l it is a lapse of style not of standpoint
Certainly not what
ought to happen
in the
Utopian sense : politi cal problems have no universal
solutions What d o es not meet the situation meets
nothing : what meets it to day will not meet it to
m orrow because the situation itself will have been
t ransformed by bein g met
My text is what may happen yet may partakes
of both will
and
ought
its meaning varies
w ith its application
The problem of Nationali ty has
come to concern ourselves and so far as it conce rns us
i t depends upon us for its solution—upon our intellectual
judgments the makin g up of our mind and upon our
m oral judgments the determination of our will
We
may thi nk this or that thought feel thi s or that
feeling and each will give a different cast to the clay
f ate h a s thrust into our hands
W e have to decide
whi ch 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 in fluence Russian a ction is slight
indeed and when we deal with neutrals or enemies our
own will ceases to coun t whi le theirs becomes all
important T his will of other parties is for us an
objective fact : we ca n conjecture wha t it is likely to
be and frame our o wn action either to thwart or to
promote it but we cannot determine their will from
ca
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P REFACE
vii
withi n , 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 th e Dual System in the
Danubian Monarchy w hich hitherto have prevented
large groups of population from exercisin g their will
a n d working out their own salvation
I thus repu diate Utopianism and declare solvency
for every draft I make upon the future The only piece
of Utopianism of whi ch I am deliberately guilty is the
suggestion that the U S A might undertake the ad
ministration o f the Black Sea Straits ( Ch IX Sect
Of course they will not and of course Russia will and
a gain 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 redu ctio a d a bsurdu m of that dearth of international
organisation whi ch is la rgely responsible for Europe s
present pass and possibly it will se rve to bring out an
underlying 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
o f the flesh
Problems are le gion and they have no
individual significance in themselves they are valuable
only as illus trations 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 un der
stand Nationa li ty we must now that it has proved itself
the dominant politi ca l factor in Europe
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NATIONALITY AND THE WAR
I have still to acknowledge my obligations The chief
so urce of this book is an ingrained habit of gazing at
maps and much of my material had been imbibed
uncons ciously in this way long before the war broke out
and I sat down to write My cons cious debts are to
S tieler s H an d-A tlas of the contemporary world and
to th e wonderful H istorica l A tlas created by Karl
S p r iin er and Theodor Menke his apostle
Both of
these I ha ve consulted continuously wh ile writing the
book and compiling my own maps that accompany it
and I have also derived much profit from the little
A lldeu tsch er A tlas published under the auspices of th e
A lldeu tsch e Verb a n d by Justus Perthes whi ch plots out
th e dist ri bution of la ngu ages in Central Europe with
admi rable exactitude though it combines scientific
execution with cha uvinisti c i n spiration in a ch ara cteristi
cally German fashion The reader will note in passing
that the oth er atlases cited are also of German author
s h ip and that conclusions based on their evidence are
not likely to be biassed to Germany s disadvantage
I am also indebted to books A mong works of
reference I would single out two of Baedeker s hand
books the eleventh e d ition o f A ustria H unga ry ( 1 9 1 1 )
and Ko nstan tinop el and Kleinasien
but in thi s
case the German source yields precedence to th e
En cyclop e dia B ritan n ica ( eleventh edition published
in
whi ch has proved the most indi spensable of all
my guides My extracts from the o fli cial census returns
of various states are nearly all derived through this
1
channel and I have made espe cially diligent use of the
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Th e 1 9 1 1 editio n o f th e En cy clope di a takes its A u stro - Hu n garian
I m ight h av e rectified them by th e
sta tisti cs fro m th e censu s o f 1 90 0
m o re recen t retu rn s o f 1 9 1 0 , b u t I hav e d el i b erately refrain ed fro m
d o m g so
Th e fig u res o f 1 9 1 0 o f co u rse rep resen t th e p resen t abso l u te
to ta ls o f th e vario u s p o p u l ati o n s m o re accu rately th an tho se o f 1 90 0,
1
.
PREFACE
ix
excellently arranged arti cles on
Austria Hungary
"
and Hungary
For what I have written on Hungary I am li kewise
in debt to the illuminating study on H unga ry in the
1
E igh teen th Cen tu ry by Professor M ar czali th e Magyar
historian but above 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 Magyarisatio n from his Racia l P ro blems in
H u nga ry and all I know about modern Croatia from
his S ou th ern S la vs I can do no better than refer th e
reader to these two books for the substantiation of my
indi ctment against the Magyar nation
Th e Wa r a n d Dem ocra cy written in collaboration by
Messrs Seton Watson Dover Wilson Zimmern and
Greenwood was only published after the relevant part
of my own boo k 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 in calcu l
able debt to another of its authors besides Dr Seton
W atson I have had th e good fortune to be Mr
Z im m ern s pupil
So mu ch for maps and books they cannot compare
with friends Without the help of my moth er and my
wife this book would never have grown ripe for publi ca
tion and I have to thank my wife s father Professor
Gilbert Murray Mr A D Lindsay and Mr H W C
b u t rel ativ e rather th an ab so l te qu an tities are valu able f o r m y p u rpo se
an d in this r esp ect th e fig res o f 1 90 0 a re u n do b tedly m o re accu rate
In 1 90 0 th e o fficxal
p ro po rtio ns were do u b tless
t h an tho se o f 1 9 1 0
a l ready d isto rted by th e H un g ari an census o fficials an d d o u b tless th e
real p ro p o rtio ns h av e slig h tly sh ifted in th e m ean whi l e b u t b o th th ese
m arg n s o f erro r a re m s gm fican t co m p ared W th th e g ro ss p erv ers o ns
o f tru th p erpetrated by H u n garian o ffic a ld o m in 1 9 1 0
S o rapidly
is a n ati o n d em o ralised wh en o n ce it su ccu m bs to chau vin ism
P u b l ish ed b y th e Cam brid g e University P ress
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x
NATIONAL ITY AND THE WAR
Davis of Balliol College and Mr R W Chapman of the
Clarendon Press all of whom have read the book in
whole or part either in manus cript or in proof Their
advice has enabled me to raise the standard of my work
in every respect When the criti cs tear my final draft
in pieces I shall realise how my first draft would have
fared had it been exposed naked to their claws
Last but not least I must express my gratitude to my
publishers Messrs I M Dent and Sons Ltd for their
un failin g kindness esp ecially for bearing with my delays
and reproducing my maps
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ARNOLD TOYNBEE
Februa ry 1 9 1 5
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C O N TEN TS
CHA PTER
I THE F UTURE
II PRUSSIA N IS M OR GERMAN Y S A MEITIO N S
A Th e Germ an E m pire
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B Th e Fren ch Fron ti er
40
8
C Th e D anish Fro n tier
4
D Th e Po lish Fro n tier
51
E Pru ssian S tate an d Germ an Natio n
80
III THE VITALITY O E A USTRIA
98
IV R ECO NS TRUCTIO N IN THE BALKAN S
138
A Hu n gary
1 40
B Th e S o u th ern S lavs
1 67
C A B alkan Z o llv erem
216
V TRI ES TE A ND ITALY
2 46
VI Tc cn A ND GERMAN IN THE N EW AUS TRIA
a6 r
VII PA N SLA VISM OR GERMAN Y S FEARS
2 73
VIII THE R USSIAN EMPIRE A N D NATIO NAL S ELF-GO VERN MEN T 2 8 1
A Th e Riso rgim en to o f Po lan d
281
B Th e Natio n al Evo l u tio n o f R ussia
2 94
C D evo lu tio n
3 00
D Exp an sio n
32 5
IX RUSS IA S N EEDS
337
A Th e Liberatio n o f th e Balti c
3 39
B Th e L ib eratio n o f th e B lack S ea
3 38
X THE DIS MA N I LIN G O E TURKEY
3 79
A Thrace
3 79
B A rm en ia
385
C Panis larnism
399
D TH E N ew An ato lia
412
B TH E N ew A rabia
433
X I NATI O NALITY Exp LO ITA TIO N A ND S TRON G GOVERN MEN T
IN PERS IA
X II NATIONALITY A N D S OVEREIGNTY
APPENDIX O N THE M A P O E E UROPE
IN DEX
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L I S T O F M A PS
IN
THE TEX T
THE KIEI CAN AL
Fa czng p age
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THE DAN U B E
Page
T HE TRE N TIN O
C O L O U RS
GERMA N FRON TIER
P O LAND
THE S O U THE RN S LA v s
THE BALKAN S
HIN TERLAND O E ODES SA
THE N EARER EAST
THE NATI O NALITIES OF E UROPE
THE
1 05
2 60
IN
THE FRAN CO -
48
WA R
A N D TH E
N A T IO N A L ITY
C H A P TE R I
FUTURE
TH E
FO R the
first time in our lives we find ourselves in
complete uncertainty as to the future T o 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
ch oose our path and follow it steadily to its end and
we rightly consider that this is the characteristi c 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 In su r
an ces
in our Politics as a great sustained concentration
of al l our surplus energies in which parties are b eco m
ing incre asingly at one in aim and eff ort while their
di fferences are shrinking to alternatives of method to
raise the material moral and intellectual standard of life
through 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 plunged into a struggle for
existence with people very much like ourselves with
whom we have no quarrel
W e must face the fact that this is pure evil an d that
we cannot escape it W e must fight with all our
strength every particle of our energy must be absorbed
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THE FU T URE
2
in the war an d meanwhi le our social construction must
stand still indefinitely or even be in par t undone an d
every class and individual in the country must suff er in
their degree according to the quite ar bitrary ch an ce o f
war in h v es horribly destroyed and work ruin ed W e
have to carry t h is war to a successful issue because on
that dep ends our freedom to govern our o wn life after
the war is over and the prese rvation of this freedom
itself is more import ant 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 civilised man s ideal to th e
uttermost But we shall only be justified in our most
momentous de cision by wh ich we have put to the
touch the whole of our fortunes at once if the path we
ch oose an d follow is worthy of the sacrifice and the
danger we are incu rring for the sake of it
At present w e are all working according to our
individual capacities for success in the war but we
have little influence even collectively upon th e 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
veil ed war of Diplomacy or the naked war of military
force that its conduct must be secret and autocratic
Naturally our thoughts are wi th 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 forgettin g 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 reco n stru c
tion of Europe would be in our hands but we should
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TH E 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
military struggle that lies immediately before us
Firstly we are more personally responsible for it as
individuals The war itself is not only being managed
by experts
it was brough t upon us (the
White
Paper leaves no doubt in our m inds ) by factors outside
England altogether But our policy after hosti lities
cease will be decided by our own government relying
for its authority upon the country behind it that is it
will be decided ultimately by publi c opinion Secondly
the state of war will have shaken our judgment wh en
we are most in need of judging wisely
The psychological devastation of war is even more
terrible than the material War brings t h e savage
substratum of human character to the surface after it
has swept away the strong habits that generations of
W e saw how the breath
civilised e ff ort have built up
of war in Ireland demoralised all parties alike W e
have met the present more ghastly reality with ad m ir
able calmness but we must be on our guard Time
wears out nerves and War inevitably brings wit h it the
suggestion of certain obsolete points of view which in
our real normal life have long been buried and
forgotten
It rouses the instinct of revenge
If Germany
has hurt us we will hurt her more—to teach h er not to
”
do it again
The wish is t h e savage s automatic
reaction the reason his perfunctory justification of it
but the civilised man knows that the impulse is hope
lessly unreasonable The hurt is being at war and
the evil we wish to bann is the possibility of being at
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THE FUT URE
4
war ag ain 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 hu m iliating us more cruelly in turn
Instead of being 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
when the blood feud is between them ; and we shall
have sacrificed deliberately and to an ever increasing
extent for the blood feud grows by geometrical pro
r
ss
i
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n
e
the very freedom for which we are now giving
g
our lives
Another war instinct is plunder War is often the
savage s profession :
With my sword spear and
1
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 requisitioned and our
crops unharvested our merchant steamers stranded in
dock if not sunk on the high seas and our blood
lavished on the war : but in the end
an d treasure
Germany s wealth will be in our grasp her colonies
her markets an d 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 is no longer a
question of irrational impulsive revenge perhaps not
even of S weetenin g our sorrow by a little gain To
draw on the life blood of German wealth may be t h e
only way to replenish the veins of our exh austed
”
Industry and Co mmerce
So the plunder instinct
”
might be clothed in civilised garb
War we might
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Th e so n g o f H yb rias th e Kretan
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THE FUTURE
5
express it
is an investment that must bri ng in its
"
return
The first argument against this point of view is th at
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 e f fect of the Morocco tension upon German
fin ance in 1 91 1 and 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 when all the armaments are on one side and
when in
all th e wealth is on the other that war pays
fact an armed savage attacks a civilised man possessed
of no arms for the protection of his wealth Our
A fghans in their towers are S harp enough not to steal
each other s cows (supposing they possess any of t h eir
own ) for cows do not multiply by being exchanged and
both A f ghans would starve in the end after wasting all
their bullets in the skirmish They save their bullets
to steal cows from th e plainsman who cannot make
reprisals
If Germany were really not hing but a nation in
arms successful war m ight be as lucrative for h er as
an Af ghan s raid on the plain but she is normally a
great industrial community 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 th e world s markets Now her workers
have been diverted en m asse from th eir prospering
industry to conquer the same markets by military force
and the whole work of forty years is jeopardised by the
chan g e of method
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6
THE FUTURE
Fighting for trade and industry is not like fighting
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 Our
economic organisation owes its power an d range to the
marvell ous forethought and co operation th at has built
it up ; but the most delicate organisms ar e the mos t
easily dislocated and the conqueror whether England
or Germany will have to realise that though h e may
seem to have got the wealth of th e 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 modern 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 h er political ambitions and Germany s economic
ruin would compromise something far greater than
Germany s political future— the whole world s pros
British wealth among the rest would be dealt
p erity
a deadly wound by Germany s economic death and it
would be idle to pump Ger many s last life blood into
our veins if we were automatically dr aining them of our
own blood in the process
But issues greater than the econo m i c are involved
Th e modern Nation is for good or ill an organ ism 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 doct or and musician every scientist
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THE FUTURE
8
tions against its promoters ) we must carry thr ough th e
ch an ge completely and at once : we cannot possibly
af ford to be exposed to the danger again
No tool machine or idea made by men has an
immortal career Sooner or later they all ru n 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 being the pinn acle
of politics only to become their foundation and till the
foundations are laid tru e further building is impossible
But the bases of nationality have never yet been l aid
tru e in Europe When we say that nationality was
”
the political ideal of th e nineteenth century and that
1 870
left th e populations of Europe organ ised in
national groups we are taking far too complacent a view
of hi storical facts The same century that produced
a united Italy and Germany saw out the whole tragedy
of Poland from the first partition in 1 772 to the last
revolt in 1 86 3 Human ideas do not spring into the
world full grown and shining like Athena : they tr ail
the infection of evil things from the past
In the Dark Ages Europe s most pressing need and
1
only practicable ideal was strong government
Strong
govern ment came with its blessings but it brought th e
evil of territorial ambitions The Duke of Burgundy
spent the wealth of his Netherland subject s in trying
to conquer the Swiss mountaineers Burgundy suc
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d throu gho u t this
bo o k in th q
f
m nt
w
h h th e
techn cal
e
Go v
“
”
g ve d h v
h
Abs l tism
A t cy
d
e
d a sinister
m pl y d b t b o th h v e c
term s m
e u su ally
b tt to u s m
u tr l wo d tha t i m pl es n o
con n o tati o n an d t
j ud gm e t o n what it d e tes
1
Th e ex p ressio n
u asi -
e
o
rn e
a
e
no
i
s
or
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i
is use
s n se
o
ern
o u
an
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are
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e
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Go vernm e t
S tro ng
o
e
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er
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u
e so
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a
e ne
a
e
in
ic
u ocra
ar
i re
a
r
i
THE FUTURE
9
to the king of France But the very factor
that made the French ki ngs survive in the struggle for
existence between governments the force of compact
nationality which the French kingdom happened to
contain deli vered th e inheritance of the kings to the
Nation
The French Nation in the Revolution burst the
Chrysalis of irrespons i ble government beneath whic h it
had grown to organic life but like a true heir it took
over the Royal Government s ideal
Peace withi n
”
and piracy without
France had already begun
aggression abroad before she had accomplished self
government at home and in delivering h erself to
Napoleon she sacrificed her liberty to her ambition
Napoleon s only enduring 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 s truggle between nationalities equally blind
haphazard and non moral but far more terrific just
because the virtue of self government is to focus and
utilise human energy so much more eff ectively 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 th e 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 1 9 1 3 we saw a striking example of the
cu m b ed
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T HE FUTURE
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endless chain of evil forged by an act of national
inj ustice
Th e Hungarians used the liberty they won in
1 86 7
to subject the Slavoni c population between
themselves and the sea and prevent its union wit h
th e free prin cipality of Serbia of the same Slavoni c
nationality Thi s drove Serbia in 1 9 1 2 to follow
Hungary s example by seizing the coast of the non
Slavonic A lbanians ; and when Austria Hungary pre
vented thi s (a right a ct prompted by most unrighteous
motives ) Serbia fought an unjust war with Bulgaria and
subject ed a large Bulgari an population in order to gain
access to the onl y seaboard left her the friendly Greek
port of Salonika
Hungary and Serbia are nominally national states
but more th an half the population in Hungary and
per haps nearly a quarter in Serbia is alien o nl y held
within the state by force against its wi ll The ener gy
of both states is perverted to the futile and d em o ralis
M agyarisin g and S erb isin g subject
in g work of
foreign populations and th ey have not even been
successful The resistance of Southern Slav nationalism
on th e defensive to th e aggression of Hungari an
nationalism has given the occasion for th e 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 th e 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 publi c O pinion throughout Europe from
"
National Competition to National Co operation
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THE FUTURE
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Public opinion will never be converted so long as the
present system of injustice remains in force so long as
one nation has less and another more than its due . The
first step towards internationalism is not to flout the
problems of nationality but to solve them
Th e 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
shutting our eyes to nationality and minimising its
importance
Our English n ational question was
settled long ago
Our geographical situation as an
island of manageable size gave our medi aeval 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
expanded 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
during latter years to adapt ourselves to our new
economi c conditions
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 h as 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
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T HE FU T URE
12
evil an evil incomparably greater th an the na tional
inj ustices that might become the cause of it We knew
th at if these qu estions were opened war would follow
We accordingly adopted the only possible course We
built our policy on the chance that national feelin g could
be damped down till it had been superseded in th e
publi c opinion of Europe by other interests not becau se
Nationalis m was unj ustified but because it endangered
so much more than it was worth Knowing that we
h ad 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 t h e same
standpoint Notably in German y the focus of danger
we saw so cial interests coming more and more to th e
front at the expense of m il itarism We threw ourselves
into the negative task of staving o ff the catastrophe in the
interim by a s trenuous policy of compromise and con
cil iation which has been successful on at le ast two
critical occasions Now that th e evil h as been too
powerful and the catastrophe has happened th e reasons
for t his policy are dead Nationalism h as been strong
enough to produce war in spite of us It has terribly
proved itself to be no outw orn creed but a vita l force to
be reckoned with It is stronger on the Continent than
so cial politics
It is the raw material that litters th e
whole ground We must build it into our foundations
or give up the task not only of constructive social
advance beyond the limits we have already reached but
even of any fundamental reconstruction of what the
war will have destr oyed
P erh aps we might have foretold this from the case of
Ireland immediately under our eyes Failure to solve
h er national problem h as arrested Irelan d s develop
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THE FUTURE
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ment since the seventeent h century and imprisoned her
in a world of ideas almost 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 arran g
ing th at the diff erent national groups in Ireland govern
themselves in t h e way they really wish the national
question will pass from the Irish consciousness ; they
will put two centuries behind them at one leap and
come into line with ourselves The Dublin strike
contemporary with the arming of the Volunteers shows
how th e modern problems are jostling at the heels of
the old Although
Unionist
and
Nationalist
politicians could still declare that their attitude towards
th e 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 wh en peace is made and we take in hand
in concert with our allies the national questions of th e
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 p hysical region like an island , a
river basin or a mountain mass a common lang uag e
especially if it has given birth to a literature a common
religion
and that muc h more impalpable force a
common tradition or sense of memories s h ared from
the past
But it is impossible to argue a p rio ri from th e presence
of one or even several of th ese factors to the existence of a
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THE FUTURE
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nationality : they may have been there for ages and
kindled no response
And it is impossible to argue from
one case to another : precisely the same group of
factors m ay produce nationality here and there have no
eff ect 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 English language for the Keltic speech is
incomparably less vigorous here than in Wales ; yet
the absence of common tradition combines with
religious differences to di vide 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 geo graphi
cal boundaries quite vague : yet she h as built up her
present concentrated national feeling in three genera
tions Italy has geography language and tradition to
bind her together ; and yet a more vivid tradition is
able to separate the Ticinese from his neighbours and
bin d him to people of alien speech and religion beyond
a great mountain range The Armenian nationality
does not occupy a continuous territory but lives by
language and religion The Jews speak the language
of the countr y where they sojourn but re ligion and
tradition hold them 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 ra ndom show that each case
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16
THE FUTURE
ference which will follow the war and is so much more
important than the war itself with a clear idea of th e
alternative solutions and a mature judgment upon their
relative merits
To accomplish this we need a co or dination of know
ledge o n a large scale knowledge of history geograp hy
religion national psycholo gy and public opi n ion It
is a case for the collaboration of experts but mean
while an attempt to review the whole question even if
t h ere is no deep knowledge be hind it may if honestly
made se rve 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 act u al
political groups some of them states with no national
basis so me 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 h as
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 Righ t and
Wrong are always a question of degree and our next
step will be to criticise the case of th e group under dis
cu ssio n 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 sch eme for the recon
struction of that particular corner of Europe
Such a reconstruction must be guided by certain
obvious principles
(i ) It must be done with the minimum of territorial
or administrative change There is always a pre
sumption in favour of the existing machinery so long
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THE F UTURE
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as it works varying in proportion to the civilisation of
th e people concerned In a civilised country the pl ant
of self government is elaborately installed not only in
the material sense of public services and ad m inistration
business concerns with capital invested in them which
must in great measure be wasted if they are broken up
and reconstituted on quite different lines but in the
more important psychological sphere of political habit
There is a certa in political value for instance in the
esp rit de co rp s of the motley Austr ian army or even in
the still callow constitutional tradition of the Austrian
Crown lands parliament It is very hard to make
people work together very easy to pull them apart
again If th ey work together so badly that they bring
the whole organism to a deadlock there is no course left
but to part th em and regroup them on other lines which
will enable th e various elements to function more
smoothly But we must never forget that the negative
work of demolishing 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
t h at su ff er T his must be so if men are not to let
di ff erence of opinion prevent them working togeth er
and co operation in spite of disagreement is the
foundation of politics W e can only secure that th e
minorities are as small and the suff ering as mild as
possible This again is a question of degree In
Macedonia until the year before last one T urk with
one rifle caused a minority of a hundred Christians
with no rifles to su ffer robbery rape and murder
Every one agrees that this was an abomination In
Great Britain at the present moment t h e numerically
small We lsh-speakin g minority of school ch ildren have
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THE FU TU RE
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to learn English as well as th eir moth er ton gue but th e
English majority do not learn Welsh Here we h ave
su ff ering
or disadvantage to one p arty with out
inj ustice : the Welsh ch ild does not learn English
because it is th e English speaking majority s interest
that he should do so but because it is his o wn His
only quarrel i s 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 facts
as it is to beat the sea and bind it in ch ains
Th e Irish question has produced a rich crop of mis
guided arguments o n both sides First came the
skirmishes of historical sentiment
The Unionists
wished to keep everythin g as it was because Ireland
has been conquered by England and united th ereby
to th e English Kingdom
Th ey were silenced by the
outstanding fact that th e Catholic Irish are a separate
nationality but not content with this the Nationalists
decl ared that th e whole island was the heritage of the
”
Irish nation
with the deplorable result th at the
Ulster Protestants made good their objection by thr eats
of force Now the Protestants in turn are trying to grab
more than their share by maintaining that Ulster is one
”
an d indivisible
in defiance of the fact tha t 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 corner
of them may be entirely Protestant in population
The onl y 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 u n iform
populations covering continuous territories ; but th at
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THE FU T URE
19
there is an irreducible zone especially in County Tyrone
where the two nations are inextricably mingled not
only Catholic village interspersed with Protestant but
Catholic and Protestant householders occupying
alternate 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 o f civilisation the human and the
territorial unit become less and less identical In a
primitive community the members are undifferentiated
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 su fficin g and cut o ff
from intercourse with the next valley In modern
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
m u n icatio n s 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 e fficiently as a
separate political unit according to modern standards
is constantly growing in size : the maximum h uman
group which can hold together without serious internal
divergence is as steadily di m inishing
This would look like an imp asse were it not corrected
by th e virtues of civilisation itself We started with
th e fact that the essence of civilisation was
F ore
thought and its ideal the power of free choice
the complementary side of t his ideal on the principle
”
Do as you would be done by is to allow free choice
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T HE FUTURE
20
to others when they are in your power It is a vir tue
with as many names as there are spheres of human lif e
”
”
Forbear ance
Toleration
Constitution alism
When we have dr awn our frontier thr ough Tyrone with
all th e ingenuity that Geography allows us there
will inevitably be a minority left on either side a
min ority no map makin g can further reduce Savages
wipe out minorities : civilised men t ake testimonials
from them The drawing of th e frontier is o n ly the
first step towards the solution of the Irish question
It will truly be settled if the minorities fin d that the
disadvantage to which Geography puts them is more
than made up by the good fellowship of the population
with wh ich it yokes them Then they will become as
strong a link between Cath olic Ireland and Ulster as
the colonies of business men that voluntarily take
up their residence in Liverpool and Hamburg are
between Germany and Eng land
Havin g stated these principles which once more
draw our attention to psychological facts as being the
really important forces to which all con crete mechanical
manipulations of frontiers and institutions must be
referred in the end we may now more safely plun ge
Let us
into the great sea of European controversy
begin with the nation whose action has drawn us into the
vortex Germany
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THE GERMAN EMPIRE
21
CHAPTER II
P RUSS IAN I SM :
’
MAN Y S AMB ITI ON S
O R GER
A Th e Germ an Emp ire
.
THE living generation of Germans is su fferi ng for a
thousand years of history They started in the race
to emerge from the Dark Age with a smaller fund
of civilisation than France had accumulated by her
thorough Romanisation and than the Norman con
qu ero rs 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 de bris of principalities of every size and character :
self governing trading cities often more in touch wit h
foreign traders across the sea than wit h 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
d istricts of Germany in the valley of the Rhine ; and
lay princes small and great from the Thuringian dukes
whose do m inions were subdivided equally among the
whole 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 in co n
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PRUSS IANISM
22
clu siv e
compromise in the devastating W ar of Thi rty
Years which paralysed the growth of Germany for
a century just when England was workin g out her
internal self government and prep aring for th e immense
development of her coloni es and industry During the
Thirty Years War Germany s consolidated neighbours
began to fish in her troubled waters in the eighteenth
centu ry she had become the playthi ng of the powers
her prin cipa lities pawns in their game : at the end of
the century she fell completely under the do m inion of
France and had to endure the merited ridi cule of the
conqueror for her particularism and its r esults a
second h an dn ess and a helpless in ert stolidity
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 Wh i le Napoleon was anne xin g or
humiliatin g 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 cr eatin g European
music was rep resented by Beethoven Germany was
already a nation : the spark had been kindled by
intellect and art An intense desire foll owed to build
up all the other sides of national life
Germany s striking defect was her political disin te
this de livered her into the hands of the French
gratio n
who preached their creed with drums and bayonets
Civilised Germany turned again to the ideal of the Dark
Age whi ch more fortunate nations had long realised
and transcended a strong military gover nment An
organ isation of just this type presented itself in th e
kin gdom of Prussia Its nucleus was the march of
Brandenburg the old frontier province against t h e
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PRUSS IA N ISM
24
principality was absorbed in Nassau durin g his lif etime)
he did not find his vocation therein but took service
in the Prussian admi n istration He came to the front
after 1 80 6 and was the inspiration both of the in ternal
reforms and of the war of li beration 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
B ut the déb ris 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 fact ors were striving to
harmonise and never succeeding On the one hand the
intell ectual and artis tic growth of Germany was gather
ing momentum : in music philology p hi losoph y and
theoretical politics the nation had not only found itself
but achi eved the primacy of Europe 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 exchanged the greater part of
her alien Polish provinces in th e East for the German
Rhineland on the West which made her a Catholic as
well as a Protestant state and the bulwark of Germany
agains t France She used the fif ty years to unite all
North Germany in her customs union but her ruling
class kept within its medi aeval traditions and only came
into hostil e contact with the spiritual movement in
which German nationalism still concentrated itself
The Prussian governin g 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
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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 co n form the m s elves 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 plunge 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 who 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
enough 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
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26
PRUSS IAN ISM
She threw herself into it with all that concentration of
energy of wh ich Bismarck had first mastered the secret
Here was a n ew sphere where intell e ctual activity and
dis ciplined 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 achievemen ts in history there is a
vigour behind them th at feels itself capable of inheriting
the whole Earth Perhaps if the Earth had lain u n
tenanted for Germany to inherit she would have found
salvation in the ach ievement and Prussian prin ciples
and German character mi ght have hardened into steel
of a temper that Bismarck in idealisti c moments may
have dreamed of
But unfortunately the pleasant plac es of the Earth
were occupied already The tropical countries that
supply Europe with raw materials her o wn climate
cannot produce were in the hands of England France
and Holland : in the temperate regions capable of
receivin g the overflow of European population new
whi te nations of English Spanish or Dutch speech
already
were growing up one of them the U S A
a world power the rest guaran teed an undisturbed
development to maturity either by the United States or
by Great Britain In the partition of the waste places
of Africa durin g the l ast twenty years of the nineteenth
centu ry Germany took her share but she got little by
it Her tropical acquisitions 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 1 870 the Germans thought they
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THE GERMAN EMP IRE
27
had at last buried th eir 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 turned to Prussianism once more
to accomplish their desire Instead of purging out
the alloy when once the metal was cast the new in
d u strial 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
e ff ort We are deeply conscious of this in Engl and
War as a constructive national activi ty is for us essentially
a thing of the past between our warlike ancestors and
ourselves th ere is a great gulf fixed the Industrial
Revolution which has put us into a new environment
In the eff ort 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
England has all she wants
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28
PRUS S IANISM
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 n o w 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
suc h immense industries that her town population has
increased at a greater rate than that of the U S A during
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
1
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
countr ies German enterprise has competed on equal
terms with French English and A merican in China and
Turkey and obtained contracts that o f fer good invest
ments for all surplus German capital for some time to
come
This has been Germany s true victory in the en
and she has done it
v iro n m en t of modern civilisation
all without moving a single gun against her neighbours
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
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This is tru e in th e sense th at th e h o m e m ar ket f o r skilled la b our
B u t w hil e th e ski ll ed G erm an is seekin g n ew o p enin gs
is g l u tted
ab ro ad th e u nski ll ed P o l e is d riftin g in to Westp h alia to d o th e wo rk
f o r w hich th e n ati v e Germ an 5 stan d ar d is too hi gh so th at th e Im mi
gratio n statis tics at p resen t o u tb al an ce those o f Em igratio n
1
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T HE GERMAN EMP IRE
29
the economic field she has by her o wn merit gained
upon us to the utmost extent possible Her only avoid
able handicap has been the great Prussian fleet and army
which she has deliberately imposed upon herself Their
creation upkeep and increase have steadily taxed her
economic growt h and their e xistence has tempted her
in her foolish trust in their efficacy for her ulterior
objects to risk all h er real economic gains by bringing
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 h as
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 follo ws 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 yo u are being
harshly treated and at the same time presented with
u nanswerable
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 mino rity of one can
make a quarrel in spite of the proverb Th e only
way to convince Germany is first to beat h er badly and
then to treat her well
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PRUSS IANISM
30
If we humili ate her we shall strengthen the obsolete
ideas in her consciousness more than ever — perhaps
”
no longer the idea of Plunder but certainly that of
Revenge which is much worse : if we deal dis
interestedly with her (though it will be in our own
truest interest ) we may produce such a reaction of
public opinion in Germany that the cu rse of aggressive
militarism will be exorcised from her as eff ectively in
1 9 1 4 as the cu rse of po litic al paralysis was exorcised
in 1 870
We have seen that Germany was led to pursue the
policy which has culminated in this war by the o pp res
sive sense that her development was being cramped by
th e action of her neighbours At first she conceived
their action as of a passive kind as the mere automatic
dog in th e manger instinct of e f fete powers to cling
to possessions they had not the initiative to utilise and
in which nothin g but historical chance 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
th e golden opportunities that they h ad missed More
recently however since h er 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
s inister ligh t 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 precipitate her in to
an aggressive war so that she finds herself actually
engaged in a life and death strug gle with these neigh
bours whom she has envied despised and feared in one
comp licated emotion she is more firmly convinced t han
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PRUSS IA N ISM
32
m an S W
Africa they will say
is essential firstly
in order to round o ff the frontiers of th e South African
Comm onwealth and secondly to prevent for th e future
th e fostering from this hostile focus of the disloyalty
against the British Empire unfortunately still rife in
the Dutch element
B ut it will be a perverse cure for Dutch disaff ection
to reinforce it by including a still more irreconcilable
German population within the same community unless
we mean to abandon the liberal policy which has gone
s o far towards wiping out the memories of th e South
African War and rule Dutch and German alike with a
heavy hand Such a disastrous course would lose us
South Africa altogether by a war of independence like
th at which severed from us the North American states
th e finest colonies we ever had If on the ot h er h and
we restore Germany her territory and avoid disturbing
the natural development of our own South A f rican
Co m m o n weatlh by the problems involved in the
annexation we shall see a new South African nation
ality grow up which will first blend Dutch and British
into one people and in process of time exercise an
attractive influence upon the territories adjoining when
th ey too have filled up with a white population drawn
from their respective mother countries and have
evolved a separate lif e of their own If German S W
Africa is not subjected to the South African Common
wealth now as a conquered province she is more th an
likely to join the Federation when she is ripe for self
government as an in dependent member of h er own
free will and so enrich the new nationali ty by adding a
German strain to the Dutch and English basis When
this happens th e South African federal state will take its
place by the side of Great Britain on th e one hand and
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THE GERMAN EMPIRE
33
Germany on the other as a separate poli tical unit
absolved from 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 A frica is
”
simpler Th ey are not white men s countries and
do not adjoin any great self governing member of the
British Empire whose policy and interest must be con
sid ered 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 tempted
to stretch out a grasping hand
They do not even pay
”
their way people will declare
and she has not learnt
t h e 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
Kamerun might be passed over
every country in
Europe after all has some little claim staked out on th e
West African coast and they are h ardly worth picking
up but German East Africa is another question and
think h ow satisfactory it will 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 A frican
possessions is emphatically her a ff air not ours that the
skill to govern native races is only acquired by experience
(we ourselves for instance blundered into our present
more or less satisfactory Crown Colony system throug h
an unh ampered century of experiments in misgovern
ment) while the all red route even if it could be
ach ieved without alienating Germany (and it would
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PRUSS IANISM
34
be out of all proportion to obtain it at th e cost o f
th e alternative ) actuall y pr esupposes th e contin uance
of that national antagonism which it is our object to
ab olish Not the monopoly of the chief tru nk rail way
of the A frican co ntinent but the co operation of all
interested parties in its cons truction and utilis ation
will open the way to the international en ten te we hope
to call into being
The most serious claim to German East Africa m i gh t
be lodged by the In dian Empire The population of
India is suffering from cong estion at le ast as acutely as
that of German y and the East African coast that faces
India across the A rabian S ea o ffers the obvious field for
her expansion There has indeed been an attempt to
convert in to a white man s country the highlands
that both in the German and in the English territory
in tervene between the coast and the great lakes ; but
the experiment seems to be in process of breakin g down
India then m ight conceivably ask
in bo th provinces
as a reward for her loyal aid in the present war that
both British and German East Africa should be assigned
to h er as a specifically Indian coloni al area
This however is askin g for more than is in our
power to grant We shall be ill advised if we do not in
future offer th e Indian citizens of o u r empire th e most
favourable openings w e can at least in regions whose
climate renders them pre eminently suitable for Indian
immigration like our o wn East African protectorate
We hope that our German neighbours on that coast will
do th e same and we might even poin t out to th em that
th e introduction of a civilised Indian population in to a
country where there is little question of their coming
in to competition with white settlers will enormously
in crease its economic productiveness which is its para
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THE GERMAN EMPIRE
35
to th e white nation to wh ich it belongs
Moreover Britis h government in India is building for
the Future an immensely powerful Indian nation and
the exclusion of Indians from this territory would
in volve Germany in th e same conflict that already
threatens Can ada and the
unless th ey modify
th eir poli cy in th e meanwhile But we must let our
action rest at th at The problem of Asiatic e xpansion
must be met primarily by every state concerned on its
own account It is probable th at th ey will find the
difficulty of its solution so great that th ey will organise
in tim e some intern ational authority to co ordin ate th eir
policy on this question and voluntarily submit th em
selves to its direction but th e solution cannot possibly
"
be furth er ed by pressure of one individual state upon
another exercised as the result of a victorious war
German y has another group of possessions in the
Pacific and perhaps here she cannot succeed in comin g
out of th e war unscathed Her Pacific territories have
little value as areas for settlement or commerce
Kaiser Wilh elm slan d in New Guinea is th e only one
of any e xtent ; several archipelagoes of small islands
only useful as coaling stations and the notorious
fortress of Kiao Chao plan ted like a piratical strong
hold on the Chinese peninsula of Shantung constitute
th e 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 Austr alia and New Z ealand two self governin g
members of our empire The anticipations of these
nations with re gard to Germany s designs are revealed
by the energy with which they proceeded to attack
m ount asset
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36
PR U SS IANISM
th ese positions as soon as war broke out New
Zealand struck at Samoa Australia at Neu Pomm ern
Kaiser Wilh elm slan d and the Solomon islands while
Japan undertook the severest task in the reduction of
Kiao Chao Japan will emerge from the war in posses
sion of th e latter place and she has handed over th e
Caroline and Marshall Islands which she occupied in
the course of her operations not to ourselves but to our
two Pacific Commonwealth s
The disposition of Germany s Pacific dependenci es
will th erefore not come into our hands at all We may
ensure th at Japan keeps to her dec lared in tention of
consignin g Kiao Chao to its ultimate owner China by
o fierin g to resign simultaneously Wei hai wei on th e
oth er coast of S h antung which we only leased as an
o ff set 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 th at any
of th e other territories in question will be relin quis h ed
by their respective holders Certainly Great B ritain
h as no authoritative power to procure their retrocession
to Germany even did she desire it and there is after
all no reason wh y we should deplore Germany s loss
of them
It will involve no corresponding loss to
her in dustrial and commercial prosperity a German
interest that we mean scrupulously to respect and if
possible to promote but will only cripple h er design of a
militaristic world empire a German interest that we
intend in self defence to remove from the sphere of
practi cal politi cs
Great B ritain s true policy then is to allow Germany
to retain all openin gs for peaceable as opposed to
forcible expansion aff orded her by her oversea
dom inions as they existed before this war broke out
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THE GERMAN EMP IRE
37
and we s h all h ave a particularly free hand in th e
decision of this question because th e command of th e
sea and th e world wide naval operations it makes
possible fall almost entirely within our province and
not within that of our European allies We must
furth ermore 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 prin ciple with regard to the territories in a
similar phase of development which ackn owledge their
sovereignty We must also respe ct the concessions
which German enterprise h as secured for its capital
with such fine ini tiative and perseverance in neutral
countries of backward growth We shall 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 h ere
we may be compelled to require Germany to abandon
her title ; but we must confine such demands to a
minimum Both we and our allies must take care that
neither politi cal 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 economi c value
If we meet Germany in this spirit she wi ll at least
emerge from the war no more cramped and constricted
than she entered it This will not of course 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 h ave seen th at we had it in
our power to mutilate h er all round and cripple h er
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P RUSS IANIS M
38
utterly and tha t we held our hand Once her fear is
banished we can proceed to conjure away h er envy for
to leave her what she has already would prepare the
ground for an in vitation to j oin us in organisin g some
standing international authority that should continuously
adj u st the claims of all growing nations Germany among
the rest by reasonable methods of comprom ise and so
provide openin gs for the respective expansion of their
wealth and population
Such an intern ational organ would replace the struggle
for exis tence between nations in wh ich each tries to
snatch his neighbour s last crust by a co operation in
which all would work togeth er for a common end ;
but many tan gled problems strew the groun d in front
of us before we can clear it for such a construction
The national foundations of Europe must first be relaid
and j u st 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 our allies because
the war on land is their provin ce and because the
national problems at issue affect th em even more
directly than us
This does not absolve us from th e 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 so lution will depend prin cipally
on th e impartia lity of our point of view an d th e reason
ableness of our suggestions and very little on any power
of making our will prevail by mere intransigeance
or by th e plea of paramount in terests Great Britain
ough t to come to the co n ference with very defin ite
opinions about th e details of these problems even at th e
risk of annoying her allies by th e appearance of meddlin g
with what is less her b u siness th an theirs The Allies
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PRUSS IANISM
40
nationalities included against their will with in the
present frontiers of the German Empire The se ttle
ment after th is war mu st bring j ustice to th ese po pu la
tions by aff ording th em an opport u nity for choosing
freely whether they will main tain their connection with
Germany or no and if not what destiny th ey prefer
Wh en we have estimated th e probable results of t h eir
choice we may proceed to consider what the efiect is
likely to be on German public opin ion and look for
some means of cancelling the bitterness whi ch cann ot
fail to be aroused in some degree But th is is essentiall y
a secondary consideration We have accepted th e
principle that the recognition of nationality is th e
necessary foundation for European peace ; and peace
is endangered far more by th e unj ust violation of th e
national idea than by the resentment due to th e j ust
reversal of the injustice even if the wrongdoer be th e
most potent factor in Europe and his victim th e most
in significant We will proceed th erefore to consider
in turn the national problems within th e German
Empire on th eir own merits
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B Th e Fren ch Fro n tier
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Th e question of Alsace Lorraine is in soluble if
it is treated as a controversy between Fran ce and
”
Germ any
Thi s land th e Germans will say
has
legally remained German soil ever since Karl the Great
divided his empir e between his three sons It is true
th at th e French annexed it by a series of conquests in
the 1 7th and 1 8th centuries but the German speech of
th e major part of its inhabitants is a living proof of its
”
true own ers hip
”
Granted the French will reply
that we won
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THE FRENCH FRONTIER
41
title by co nquest yet its recognition by in numerable
German govern ments in innumerable treaties gave it a
validity at least as great as that inherent in Charlemagne 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 claims rest on ancient history
why did you still leave us hal f Lorraine in 1 871 for you
had no worse a ti tl e to it than to the half you took ?
Y o u 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 title now as you say it was ours before and
”
th e moment has come for our revenge
The two nations have bandied historical arguments
like t h ese for forty three years without approaching
any nearer to a conclusion because th eir pleas though
mostly correct in fact are none of th em relevant to t h e
situation The question indeed only affects France
and Germany in a secondary degree
th e parties
primarily concerned are the inhabit ants of the disputed
territory themselves and their present will is the only
solution But th e autocratic regime on t h e 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 organise some machinery for ascertaining wh at th e
people s will may be
We must in fact insist that a plebiscite be taken
throughout th e Reichsland Many people will treat
”
this proposal with cynicism
A plebiscite they will
“
say
invariably confirms the desire of the authority
that conducts it A vote taken under the auspices of th e
Allies would as certam decide for union with France
as one taken by the German regime before the war
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PRUSSIA N ISM
42
would have declared for adhe sion to th e German
Empire
Th is however assumes a sinister in tention when the
presupposition of th e proposal is th e desire on our par t
to de al justice to all nationalities an d a belief that it is
our in terest to do so and it is clear that we are capable
of hones tly conducting a plebiscite if we will A
more valid objection would be th at however honest our
oo n d u ct our opponents would never credit the fact if
the result issued to our advantage and to their dis
advantage so that even th e reality o f free choice by th e
voters would not modify the resentment of their former
masters The remedy for this would be th at the
v i ctorious party should evacuate th e districts in d ispute
altogether and hand over the organisation of the votin g
to some neutr al power It might even then be object ed
t hat th e foregoing decision of the war would necessarily
influence the decision of th e vote and this is probably
tru e but it will certainly not influence it automatically
in favour of the conquerors A ll sorts of events isolated
in cidents of the war itself and the varied memories of
half a century before it will aff ect th e voters judgment
more than th e total sum of past history drawn by t h e
war s issue in fact this issue will be only one of many
stimuli to the complicated motives th at will go to make
up the fin al desire of the votin g population
A plebiscite then need neither be an unreality to the
voters nor seem so to th e parties interested ; and j ust
as the will of the former is more important than t h at of
the latter so th e moral e ff ect upon the voters th emselves
of its true declaration is especially valuable The great
merit of th e plebis cite is th at it saves population s from
bein g consigned like cattl e from pen to pen a treatment
the more in tolerable in proportion to th e civilisation
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THE FRENCH FRONTIER
43
of th e people that suff er it and little calculated as the
case of the Reichsland itself has proved to conciliate
them to th e nationality with which they are thus
ar bitrarily yoked
The mere taking of a plebiscite will always go far
towards e asing the situation : the real difficulty lies in
determining the practical method on wh ich it is to b e
conducted Clearly the result will diff er according to
the S ize of the minimum unit within which a separate
poll is taken If the votes of the whole population of
th e 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
whole wh ich with almost equal certainty would have
declared for standing by Germany But it is obviously
unjust that units capable of being separated out geo
grap hi cally and possessed of a local consciousness of
their own should be denied the expression of their will
by artificial inclusion in a larger but inorg an ic mass
The most important preliminar y therefore to the taking
of a plebiscite is the definition of such minimum areas
and it is here that th e 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
1
Th e Reich sland is shaped like a T square with its
angle poin ting North East and its two ar m s are sharply
2
divided by the barrier of the Vosges
The Western
arm stretches across the gap between the Vosges and
the Ardennes and forms the transition between the
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Th e to ta l p o p u l atio n was
in 1 90 5 , th e Germ an -sp eakin g
el em en t co nsti tu tin g 8 5 p er cen t o f th e W h o l e
1
S ee M ap
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P R U SS IANISM
44
plains of Northern France on the one hand and the
Pru ssian Rhineland on th e other
This district includes both French and Ger m an
speaking populations and a line drawn diagonally
across it from North West to South Eas t an d
rough ly coinciding wi th the watershed between the
Seille and the Saar would indicate the boundary
between the two elements
It is certain that the
1
French speaking section of the district would vote
unanimously for reunion with France wh ile the German
speakin g section on the other hand seems either never to
h ave felt or easily to have lost political sympathy with
France and to have become conscious now of solidarity
with its North ern neighbours of the same speech
further down the Saar and the Mosell e The areas
respectively inhabited by the populations in question
form compact blocks adjoining the countries with which
each is likely to seek union and the boundary between
them follows a line quite suitable for a m ilitary and
political frontier Clearly therefore these areas pres en t
two natural u ni ts withi n which the vote should be
taken separately and the result of th e polling s h ould
de cide definitively the fate of each
The town and district of Thionville (Diedenh ofen)
ought perhaps to vote by itself because here th e
population is mixed and the decision correspondin gly
doubtful whil e its geographical situation would equally
permit its inclusion in either country It is probable
that it will vote for the conne ction with France and
this will certainly be the case with Me tz the great
fortress of purely French population at the junction of
the Seille and th e Moselle ; with all the villages and
townships of the Seill e basin itself ; and with the
A bo u t 1 5 % o f th e to tal po pu latio n o f th e who le Reichslan d
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46
PRUSS IANISM
uncompromisingly determ ined to break loose from their
present union with Germany The notorious incident
t hat occurred at Zabern less than a year ago advertised
th e fact that Prussian military government was in to ler
able and that so long as Alsace was subject to it th e
g ran t of constitutional self government would remain
an emp ty formali ty but it might well become a reality
as a result of this war and if Alsace had the opportunity
of enterin g the German Empire as an independent
member on an equal footing with the other s tates still
more if she could enter it as part of a u n ited South
German state strong enough to hold its own within
the Empire against the North there is strong re ason to
e xpect that the bond of common speech would assert
itself and attract her strongly to her South Germ an
1
brethren only parted from her by the Rhine
On t h e 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 problemati cal reform of th e German
E mpir e s internal organisation which she would h ave
little influence in promoting nor in a precarious
autonomy which she could never defend by her own
resources but solely in placing herself once more unde r
th e a gis of France where the gratification aff orded by
her choice would ensure her a pecu liarly benevolent
reception
Th e decision then of Alsace or in oth er words h er
nationality is quite unpredi ctable and th e question of
meth od in organising the pl ebis cite accordingly assumes
h ere a special import ance It is clear in th e first place
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Econ o m ics as well as lan guage draw Alsace to wards Germ an y
all th e m ar k ets f o r h er m an u factu res lie d o wn th e Rhin e n o n e o f th em
West o f th e Vosges
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THE FRE N CH F RONTIER
47
th at the probable decision of North Eastern Lorraine
to remain within Germany would incidentally decide
the fate of the no rth ernmost strip of Alsace adjoining
it on th e East If S aargem iin d 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 S aarb o u rg it would have to include
at least Weissenburg Hagenau and Bis chweiler on its
way to the Rhine
The small minority of population
inhabiting this strip would thus inevitably suff er the
loss of their freedom of choice but the rest of Alsace
that is th e Southerly pass and the whole country South
of it between the Vosges and the Rhine would still
decide its own fate
The crucial question next arises Wh at units of voting
should be adopted in t his area 4 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 di fficulties Suppose Phalsbourg voted like
S aargem fin d for Germany while all the other com
munes voted for Fr ance it would be impossible
to give Phalsbourg 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
while Strasbourg voted for France Colmar and
M iilh au sen voted for Germany it would be geo
graphically impossible to link both groups with their
chosen fatherl ands In fact Alsace itself is a minimum
u n it
Th ere are no suitable lines for a frontier to follow
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48
PRUSS IANISM
b etween th e Vosges and th e Rhin e , or between Ph als
bourg , Str asbourg and M iilh ausen so that, if we take
th e plebis cite by fragments of th e district , we shall be
compelled seriously to tamper with its result in order
to reduce it to a workable shape and so nul lif y the voting
to the di scontent of all parties It is worse than useless
to take a vote unless it is meant to be definitive an d the
disappoin tment of a single large minority is a lesser
evil than the disillusionment of many small majorities
Al sace then within the limits defined must vote as
a s ingle unit We cannot foretell how the decision will
go and the importance of the result both for France
and Germ any is momentous Only one thing is
certain that the accession of Alsace would profit either
country little unless it were compassed by the desire
an d t h e initiative of Alsace he rself
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C Th e Danish Fron tier
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The question of Schleswig Holstein h as not yet
been opened by t his war but we must not for that
re ason neglect it for the seeds of future war are th ere
When the German Co nf ederation fough t Denmark on
this account in 1 86 4 the two provinces had long been
united under the Danish Crown and the prize of victo ry
was their cession as a single unit to the conquerors ;
but th e situation before the war and the settlement
after it were alike unjust because this political u ni ty
h as neither a national nor a geographical foundation
It was monstrous th at the whole territory should be in
3
D enmark s hands for 85 % of th e total population is
Ger man but it is equally outrageous that the Danish
minority of
should have been violently wrench ed
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S ee m ap o n o
ppo site page
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1
To tal po pu lation
in 1 900
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THE K IEL CANAL AND THE BAL T IC SEA
I IAN
D S
il h o l m s h a v
B rem e i h a v e n
P PO P O S E D F
R A I LW A Y S
R O N TI E R S
to B e r l i n
DA N I S H
" P O P U L A TI O N
S “
THE DANISH FRON T IER
49
away from their national state The problem should
now be solved by allowing either province to go its
own way
Holstein belongs entirely to Germany by nationality
geography and tradition No Danish is spoken within
its limits it flanks the Right bank of t h e Elbe estuary
below Hamburg ; it contains the whole course of the
Kiel Can al a vital artery of Germany s commerce that
gives h er t h e necessary direct connection between
the Baltic and the North Sea ; and even while
actually under Danish control it always formed a
juridic al part first of the
Holy Roman Empire
”
and then of th e German Confederation through the
darkest days of Germany s political history T o sever
the conne ction of this province with Germany is u n
thinkable
Schleswi g on th e oth er hand is predominantly
Danish in speech and the plebiscite will almost certainly
sh ow that the whole province (for it is one of those
minimum units that are not susceptible of sub divi
sion) is Danis h in national sentiment Geographically
moreover its links are as strong with the Jutland
peninsula as are those of Holstein with the German
continent and th e present Dano German frontier is as
unnatural and meaningless a line as is the South East
boundary of Holstein against Hamburg L iib eck and
Mecklenbur g The true frontier of Germany and
Denmark does not lie at eit h er extremity of the two
provinces but between th em
In sketching it we
must compromise between racial distribution and
geographical necessity Th e presumption in favour of
an e xisting line would suggest that we should simply
follow th e historical boundary between Schleswig
and Holstein but unfortunately the Kiel S hip Canal
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PRUSS IANISM
50
coincides with th is along its Eastern section and both
banks of the Canal must clearly remain wit hin Germ an
territory ; so that while still takin g th e estuary of the
Eider as the Wes tern terminu s of the frontier we must
d raw its Eastw ard course furth er North and bring it to
the Bal tic at the head of Eckernf Ord e Bay instead of the
left shore of Kiel Haven
This kn e th ough it leaves to Germany a slice of
Sch leswig in addition to all Holstein whi ch is in itself
by far the more po pulous and important of the two
provinces still assigns to Denmark a small Germ an
speaking area including the towns of Schleswig and
Flensburg w hi ch cannot be detach ed from th e Danis h
1
speakin g unit
The sympathi es of this tiny minority
will be revealed by th e plebis cite Probably the factor
of lan guage will be outweighed by histori cal tradi tion
an d by the rigour of Prussi an administration for w hich
the German nationality of the P russian state in which
Schleswig has been forcibly incorporated is only a
th eoreti cal compensation ; but even if these German
speaking S chleswigers would prefer to remain withi n a
reco n stituted Germ an y t h ey are one of those m inorities
2
that must inevitably be sacrificed to the e xi g encies
of geographi cal facts for there is no natural physical
frontier to be found that corresponds more closely th an
the Eider line to the actual frontier of speech
In detail , then and it is better to descend to detail
for concr eteness sake the new frontier should probably
run as follows : starting from the head of Eckernf é rd e
Bay so as to assign the town of Schl eswig to Denmark
but to leave Eckern f Ord e to Germany it should make a
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With
an d
in h abitan ts resp ectiv ely
With o u t prej u dice to a possi ble gu aran tee o n th e p art o f E u ro p e
o f th eir n atio n al cu l tu re an d in d i vidu a lity
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P RU S S IA NI S M
52
(c) Th e Poles possible gain from th e war amo u nts
therefore to th e creation of a united national state enjoy
in g internal autonomy but in corporated in a larger
politica l organisation A n y of th e three powers would
be will ing if th e opportunity arrived to m ake concessions
to the P oles already subject to it in order to attract
within its frontier upon th e same terms th e remain in g
sections of the nation
The Poles then can ma ke a bargain on much th e
same lines with either group We have now to consider
wh ic h group is in a position to negotiate most favourably
with th em
O ur ally Russia is th e traditional enemy of the Polish
nation Th e two peoples have been rival leaders of
the Slavonic world Poland drew her culture from th e
Latin West and her peas antry rem ained sta u nch to the
1
Catholic Chur ch durin g the cris is of the Reformation
R u ssia to ok upon herself the in h eritance of the B yzan
tine Empire
Sin ce 1 8 1 4 more than half Poland s
territo ry and population includin g the national capital
Warsaw has been incorporated in th e Russian Empire
Accordin gly the national revolts of 1 83 1 and 1 86 3
were directed primarily and in effect solely against
Russian rule and in th e concerted repression which th ey
provoked from th e three powers the Russian govern
ment has taken th e lead The most cruel symbo l of
Polan d s h u miliation is the flau n tin g O rthodox Cath edral
planted in th e ch ief public square o f Warsaw
The bitter hatred Russia had in curred from the Poles
was an opportunity for Russia s enemies Austria
realis ing that some day she would be drawn into a
lif e -and death stru ggle with Russia over th e ques tion
of the Balkans was clever enough to seize it
Th e histo ry o f P o lan d an d Irelan d has been parallel in m any po in ts
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THE P O L ISH FRONTIER
53
Th e Hapsburg E mpire with its medley of races
u n in atio n al
sta te of
co uld never convert itself in to a
th e type to which nineteenth century Europe was con
forming its true policy was to become a
happy
family in which various nationalities should live and
let live side by side When the disasters of 1 86 6 forced
in ternal reconstruction upon the government at Vienna
1
it miserably failed on the whole to realise this ide al
only in the case of its Polis h subjects did it carry its n ew
policy to completion In 1 86 9 the province of Galicia
Austria s s h are in the Polis h spoils was granted a far
reaching measure of Home Rule and Polish was declared
th e normal lan guage of its ad m inistration and hig h er
educ ation
2
Th ese concessions h ave made the Poles the most
loyal citizens of th e Empire The Polis h club or
parliamentary block h as practically become the govern
ment party in th e Austrian Reichsrath on which th e
ministry can always rely for the voting of supplies and
th e passing of army bills The Austrian Poles have not
of course abandoned the dream of national reunion
but th ey have learnt to seek it under the Hapsburg
ban ner and th eir propaganda in the Russian provinces
serves Austrian foreign policy at least as much as th e
cause of Polish nationalism When the Russian s
occupied Galicia towards the beginning of the war th e
Polis h population rose en m asse again st the invaders
Their own experience will never commend to th em th e
change from Austrian to Russian allegian ce The only
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S ee Ch 111
1
It m ust b e m en tio n e th at this reco gn itio n o f th e Po ish an gu ag e
erm an ,
hich was o rm er th e u ni ersa
a icia h it n o t o n
in
ro in ce, tho u gh it was o n
an gu age o f o fficia
usin ess in th e
s o en
ro o rtio n o f th e
an insign ifican t
o u atio n , b u t a so th e
u th en e
we o f US ian , th e n ati e sp eech o f n ear hal th e in habitan ts
ee
‘n
1
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l
by
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Gl
g éh fi é
d
ly G
lb
p p
v
w
p v
p p l
f
ly
ly
f
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v l
ly p k
R
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PRUSS IANISM
54
factor that may mo d ify th eir feelin g is th e Polish po licy
of Austri a s German ally
Pruss i a too found her interes t in fomenting th e
enm ity between Russian and Pole but sin ce ti ll th e
last generation of the nineteenth century she was still
Aus tria s rival and had not yet become her ally, she
worked for th e same object by supporti ng th e opposite
party She consistently played second fiddle to Ru ssia
in th e P olish concert and at the same time contrived
to call th e tun e
Prussian diplomacy at Petersburg
th warted all attempts at a Russo Polish reconciliatio n
and th en th e Prussia n m ilitary auth orities lent a helpin g
hand to th e Russian government across th e frontier to
suppress those insurrections whi ch the breakdown of
con ciliation had stimulated
By th eir mach iavellian
hand ling of th e Po lish situation th e Prussians secured
that th eir Ru ssian nei gh bour should have neith er th e
wil l nor th e power to mena ce th e ms elves
In 1 879 h owever th e German Empire tran sferred its
allian ce from Russia to A u stri a and th e coun ter-allia nce
be tween Russia and France finally cons ummated in th e
nin eties ma de the breach irreparable Yet while s h e
th us reversed h er foreign policy Germany entirely
omitted to correct h er behaviour towards th e Poles at
home so as to brin g it into line with that of her new
Au strian ally Instead s h e succumbed to th e obs ession
of nationalism an d began to chastise her P oles with
scorpio n s instead of whips
In 1 888 th e Prussian parliament es tablis hed an
A nsied elu n gs kommission
( Colonisation Board ) for
bu yin g up the land of Polis h proprietors in the provin c es
of Posen and West Prussia and plan ting German se ttlers
upon it In 1 90 8 th e Board was even granted powers
of compulso ry expropriation Sin ce 1 872 press ure of
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TH E POL ISH FRONTIER
55
th e most e xtreme kin d has been exerted to make
Germ an in stead of Polish th e medium of instruction
not only in high er education but in the local elementary
s chools In fact the whole Prussian administrative
machin e has been brought to bear against Polish
nationality within the German Empire and in t his case
its effi ciency has been Germany s misfortune Russia s
intentions towards the Poles may have been equally
sinister but she lacked the means to carry them in to
e ff ect and national sentiments are determined less by
motives than by results Germany has robbed Russia
of th e premier place in Polan d s hatred Her Polish
policy sin ce 1 87 1 has been as unintelligent as it was
astute during the fifty years preceding She has called
down upon her head t h e enmity of both Poles and
Russians at once
At th e outbreak of war then the Polish national con
scio u sn ess hated the t h ree powers in the following
order of intensity : Austria Russia Germany It
remains to be seen wheth er the strong preference for
Austria over Russia will be outweighed by th e extreme
detestation of Austria s German partner
Several factors make it probable that this will happen
In the first place there are the events of th e war The
war h as already made it patent to th e world that
Germany is the dominant partner in the alliance an d
Austria merely her tool If therefore the Central
European powers win th e war it will be Germany s and
not Austria s policy that will be imposed upon Europe
in general and Poland in particular Meanwhile the
Germans have shown beyond all doubt what that policy
wil l be Th ey began of course like the other two
powers by pro claiming the unity and autonomy of the
N o t sto ppin g sho rt o f co rp o ral pu n ish m en t
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56
PRUSS IA N ISM
Po lis h nation ; but when they crossed th e frontier to
make th eir word good th ey dealt with the Polish sub
j ects of Russia th e nation s central core not as friends
to be liberated but as a hostil e population to be terrorised
The treatment of the frontier town of Kalis ch was on a
ar
with the worst incidents in Belgium Warsaw has
p
been s h uddering ever sin ce at th e possibi lity of th e same
fate ove rtaking her and th ere has been someth ing like
a natio n al risin g of the country people agains t the Germ a n
troops in occupation
Poles and Russians seem in
process of being fused together in feeling by th e fire
of a common hate They are stimulated now by th e
instinct to defend their u nited country against th e
in vader but when th e Russian armies cross th e frontier
in turn bo th th e Polish and th e Russian soldiers that
mar ch in their ranks will respond alike to the Pan sla v
impulse of rescuing th e Polish minority in Prussia from
th e jaws of Pan germ an ism
If th en we and our allies are victorious th e erection
of an autonomous Poland wi thi n the Russian Empire is
almost assured and it will include not only th e former
subjects of Russia but th e Polish victim s of Prussia as
well This will come about not so much in virtue of
th e Grand Duke s pro clamation whi ch under oth er
circumstances might well have left the Poles cold but
because Germany s behaviour has put th e Poles in a
mood to respond warmly to her opponent s overtures
and to compromise with Russia in a spirit of give and
”
take
T he chi ef obstacle to an en ten te between Poles
and Russians was the memory of wrongs infli cted by
Russia in the past These memories will be e clipsed
effectively by the direct action of Germ any in the
present
There is also the permanent factor of Geography
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THE POLISH FRONTIER
57
The Russian provinces by th eir central position and their
great superiority in e xtent to the Prussian and Austrian
fragments are the necessary nucleus of a united national
state The same cause that made the Poles single out
Russia for attack wh en they hoped to restore their nation
to complete independence will make th em rally roun d
Russia now that they have accepted th e principle of
autonomy with in a larger Empire Th e victory of our
enemies would certainly ensure to the Austrian section
of the nation the liberties it already enjoys ; but in
promoting such an issue the Galician Poles would be
sacrificing the one chance of national unity to the
preservation of their local Home Rule
In making her bargain with the Poles Russia has th e
supreme advantage of being one and in divisible wh ile
on the other side there are the ambitions of two parties
to be satisfied
Whatever their professions or even
th eir wishes Germany and Austria could never arrange
between th em th e erection of a united Poland
Th e reunion of th e whole nation within th e frontier of
either one or th e other is clearly out of the questi on for
neither would surrender its o wn Polish provinces to its
neighbour A second possibility would be th e creation
of an autonomous Poland under their join t protectorate
to which they should cede their respective Polish terri
tories But though the Galician Poles are perhaps a
strong enough power in Austria to compel assent to their
secession into th e new national state it is hardly con
ceiv ab le that Prussia would of her own free will relax
her grip upon her Polish districts The German and
Polish populations on her Eastern frontier are desperately
intermingled an d she still hopes to simplify the tangle
by th e forcible Germanisation of the aliens Moreover
much of the country in question is important to her
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PRUSS IANISM
strategicall y A Po land manufactured under Austro
German auspices would therefore be robbed from the
outset of at least th ree m il lion of its citizens no less th an
1 7 per cent of the whole nation
and it is further pro
bable that the government at Vienn a in order to m ain tain
th e balan ce of power between itself and its a lly would
ins ist upon following Pruss ia s example and success
fully oppose the transference o f the Galician Poles
from their Austria n allegiance to the autonomous
principality
In the event of Austro German victory therefore th e
pro mises of national res toration would result in noth ing
but th e grant of auto nomy to the present Russian
provinces whi ch include no more th an three fif th s of th e
total Polish population The n ew Poland would start
life a cripple and even this maimed existence would
probably be short for the situation thus created could
hardly be permanent The emergence of a self
governing Polish state in their immediate neighbourho od
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 an d the
autonomous prin cipality in turn could not remain in
dif ferent to the ir struggles Gratitude towards Austria
and Germany its liberators from Russian ru le and its
o fficial guarantors again st the reimposition of it would
be eclipsed by indign ation at these patrons flagrantly
incons istent treatment of its brethren within their own
borders The national government at Warsaw would
begin to bargain be hind its prote cto rs
backs with
defeated an d chastened Russia for a genuin e reunion of
the whole nation under Russia s banner Berlin and
Vienna would get wind of the danger in time and they
would foresta ll it by partitioning th e prin cipality itself
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PR U SS IANISM
60
vote to a man for liberation from her dominion and will
carry the Austrian Poles with them It is one of th e
ironies of history that Gali cia th e best governed pro
vin ce of Austria should also be the provin ce whose loss
in the event of defeat we can most confidently predict
Austria will lose the reward for h er righteousness in
Gali cia in retribution for her ally s s ins in Posen and
West Prussia
The exasperation of national feelin g on this Eastern
frontier makes it considerably easier to as certain the will
of the populations concerned than on the frontiers
towards Denmar k an d France We ca n assume before
an y plebis cite is taken that every Pole desires sec ession
from Germany and we mu st also keep it clearly before
our minds th at every German in the disputed zone will
be sti ll more eager to remain a citizen of th e German
fath erland
In seeking to compromise between the wishes of th e
German and Polish inhabitan ts of these districts we
must not let ourselves be prejudiced by th e atro cious
poli cy of th e Pruss ian government
A gove rnment s
actions are no certain test of a nation s fundamental
character : political systems come and go and th eir
ideals pass with th em whi le the nation s growth main
tains its even course L et us forget for the moment
how the Prussian administration has treated th e Poles
and refrain from conjecturin g how a nationalist Polish
regime might treat any German subje cts it acquired
but compare with open minds the relative culture of th e
individual German and Pole We shall probably receive
the impression that the Germ an would suffer greater dis
advantage by bein g annexed to a community of Poles
whose standards would be lower than his own th an th e
Pole would suf fer by enrolm ent as a German citizen
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61
THE POLISH FR O N T IER
whi ch would be a kin d of compulsory in itiation in to a
superior civilisation
Of course compulsory conformity to an alien system
of life , even if th e compulsion does not extend beyond
the sphere of politics is almost equally distasteful
whether th e people whose citizenship you have been
forced to adopt are relatively more advan ced than your
self o r more backward ; but in the present in stan ce we
are in face of the situation th at so commonly arises in
questions of nationality : a min ority must in evitably
su ffer
Th e German and Polish populations along this frontier
are intricately interlaced This is not due to the
modern activities of th e Colonisation Board
th eir
result has been the stimulation of national feeling not
1
the modification of national distribution
The racial
confusion is the gradual effect of four centuries the
twelfth to the sixteenth durin g 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
expense less by violent conquest than by peaceful
penetration at the summons of native Polish rulers
This movement died down as soon as th e Poles began
2
to overtake in civilisation their German teach ers and
D u rin g th e gen eratio n sin ce th e B o ard s ins titu tio n th e p ercen tages
o f th e po p u latio n in P ru ssian p ro v in ces co n ta in in g b o th n atio naliti es
have p ersisten tly sh ifted in favo u r o f th e Po les Th e Po l es b irthrate
is m u ch h igher th an th e G erm ans an d this g v es them a greater share
in th e to tal ann u al in crease
A higher birthrate is o f co u rse sym p to
m atic o f a l o wer stan d ard o f l fe in a sen se th e Germ ans ar e su ff erin g
f o r th eir su p erio r cwrlisatio n an d this ex plains w hy th ey to l erate th e
barb aro u s m etho ds by w hich th e Prussian go vernm en t attem p ts to
right th e b al an ce
In th e sixteen th cen tu ry th e Po lish n o b ility was co n verted to
Calvin ism an d too k a leadin g part in th e cu l tu ral develo pm en t o f
Eu ro pe In th e n ext cen tu ry th e Po lish ren aissan ce was su bm erged
by th e Co u n ter Refo rm atio n
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62
PRUSS IANISM
the Colonisation policy is an un j u stifiable an d im
practica ble attempt to set it going again by force b u t
by whatever pro cess th e various Germ an enclaves have
come to be estab lis hed on what was originally Polis h soil
th eir sole but su ffi cient title is th eir actual presence th ere
now In dealin g with th ese awkward German minorities
we must es chew all historical arguments and simply
start from th e fact of th eir present e xistence
Besides th e intermixture of th e two nationalities there
is a furth er fa ctor whi ch limits the possibility of re cti
f yin g th e Eastern frontier of Germany in accordance
with th e wishes of th e local population in th e various
districts af fected
O ur object in changin g the politi cal map is to sift out
as lar ge a proportion of the Polis h element as we can
from th e German an d free them from their presen t
comp ulso ry asso ciation If the liberated territories were
destined to be incorporated in an entir ely independent
Polis h state we could pursue th is object with out any
secondary considerations but we have seen that th e
Prussian Poles will break th eir asso ciation with German y
onl y to efi ect a new as so ciation with Russia We have
still to e xam in e what form th is partnership is likely to
take but we can prop h esy this much with certain ty th at
th e New Poland an d Russia will have a common tarif f
system and a comm on milita ry organ isation : in th e
e conomic and th e strategical sphere the Western frontier
of autonomo u s Poland will be identical with th e Western
frontier of th e whole Russian Empire
No settlement would be perman ent which left Ger
many s Eastern flan k strategically an d economically at
Russia s mercy
Frontier lines must be drawn so as
to enable the countries divided by them severally to
lead an independent and self su fficien t life of their own
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THE P OL IS H FR ON TIER
63
This is th e first condi tion th ey must satisfy if they are
to h ave any si gnificance at all and an essenti al part of
Independence is the capacity for resistin g by force
of arms an armed attack on the part of the neighbour
ing state
This fact is unquestionably true at th e present time in
Europe an d our reconstruction after th e war is over
will be Utopian if we ignore it We are all hopin g that
revulsion from war will lead to disarmament and that
th e military factor will cease to play in the international
politics of th e future the terribly domin an t part whi ch
it has played in th e p ast ; we are all agreed that the posi
tive impulse to disarm can come from no calculation of
material advanta ge but only from a change of heart ;
but we must recognise t hat th is psychological conversion
wil l not be produced automatically by shutting our
eyes to th e d ifli cu lties 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 e xistence
between nationalities only by solving national problems
and not by neglecting them This principle applies to
th e crudest form of the struggle its conduct by the brute
violence of war Nations will have no ear for the
gospel of Peace so long as th ey feel th emselves exposed
to each oth er s arms Th e present war was precipitated
when several nations reached breaking point in a long
drawn agony of mutual fear We shall not cure them of
militarism by placing them at each other s mercy more
completely than ever War will only become impossible
when either party s frontier has been made so in vu l
n erab le that the oth er abandons all idea of violating it
If the frontiers of Belgium against Germany and Fran ce
h ad been as invincibly fortified as th e Franco German
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PRUSS IANISM
frontier itself is fortified on eith er side th ere would have
been no campaign in the West
In deli m iting therefore our new frontier between
Germany and th e Russian Empire we must e xpose
neith er country to the other s strategic initiative (other
wise we shall only accentuate their fears and open a
new era of war between th em instead of closing th e era
th at is past ) and here we are confronted with a dilemma
for the e xis ting frontier th ough it grievously violates
th e national prin ciple was negotiated with the precise
in tention of producing a true strategic equilibrium
T his frontier dates from the Congress of Vienna
which resettled Europe in 1 8 1 4 after the overthrow of
Napoleon O ne of the main lin es of settlement upon
which all were agreed was that Prussia should take her
s hare of the spoils in Western Ger m any while Russia
s hould be p aid off with those Polish provinces which had
1
been seized by Prussia and Austria in the last partitions
an d subsequently erected by Napoleon into th e Grand
Duchy of Warsaw Prussia stipulated however that
this principle should not apply to th e d istricts of Ku lm er
2
land an d Posen and insisted upon their inclusion within
h er own frontier She gain ed her poin t because it was
universally recognised that her deman ds in this quarter
were b ased on consideratio n s of strategical necessity
an d were not prompted by territorial ambition
Th e present frontier th en was admitted in 1 8 1 4 to
be the min imum line whi ch Prussia could defend succ ess
fully against Russian attack We now propo se to push
this line still furth er back towards Breslau and Berlin in
deference to the prin ciple of Nationality but we must
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i gh t
S i tu ate o n th e
o rtresses G rau en z an d Th o rn
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b k o f th e Vistu la an d co n taini n g th e
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THE POLISH FR ON TIER
65
not allow our insistence upon true national frontiers to
blind us to the strategic factor Our final result must
be a compromise between th e two prin ciples and before
we put the question of national allegiance to the vote
among the inhabitants of th e debata ble zone we s hall
have like the diplomatists of 1 8 1 4 to lay down a limit
b e hind which t h e German frontier must not be driven
even though it may deprive considerable enclaves of
Polish population lying within it of the right to ch oose
for themselves th eir 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 th e present
frontier line but in practice there would be a one -sided
ness about such an arrangement against wh ich the
victorious Poles an d Russian s would energetically
protest A m in imum has always a strong tendency to
become a maximum as well and our allies will probably
accept the principle of th e min imum line only on con
dition that Germans on the wrong side of it shall suffer
the same loss of free choice that th e Poles must suffer
who are left on the opposite side
In this case the situation would be e xactly opposite to
that on th e Fran co German border There the tracing
of boundaries by the parties to the conference will be
simply a preliminary step towards constituting th e local
population into groups and the free vote of these g rou ps
will then decide the fate of their respective districts
In Poland on the contrary the plebiscite would be
eliminated altogether and th e new frontier defin itively
constituted by negotiations between plenipotentiaries
of Germany on the one side and Poland and Russia on
the ot her
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66
P R U SS IA N ISM
Th e actual course th e new lin e will follow mu st
depend largely upon th e bargainin g power possessed at
th e close of th e war by th e two parties and is to that
e xtent unpredictable but the transaction wil l not be
co nducted by Germany and Russia alone All members
of th e Congress will take a han d in it and Great
B ritain s influence as a mediator will be especially
valu able in this question because she has absolutely no
direct interest in th e issue It is in cumbent u pon us
th erefore to work out for ourselves a compromise which
we can recommend independently of bargainin g power
as the best possible under the permanent geographi cal
and racial circums tances and we had better frame
suggestions for a new frontier in some detail
O ur d is cu ssion will be clearer if we treat the e xtensive
line from the Carpathians to the Baltic in several
1
sections
We will begin with Silesia
(a) Th e province of Silesia occupies th e whole upper
bas in of the River Oder It forms a portion of th e great
North European plain and its only physical frontiers
are the Riesen Gebirge Range on the South West whi c h
lies between it and Bohemia and th e Carpathian Moun
tains on the South which divide it from Hungary Th e
country possesses two chief lines of communication with
th e rest of th e world
North Westward the Oder
descends to th e port of Stettin at th e head of a lan d
locked arm o f the Baltic the H alf
th e
great Moravian Gap between the Riesen Gebirge and
th e Carpathians opens a route to the Danube basin
which is traversed by several lines of railway leading
to Vienna
These geographical factors have determ ined Silesian
history Silesia was occupied about 600 A D by the
S ee M ap II f o r all sectio ns
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68
PRUSS IANISM
ally on eith er side of th e Austro Prussian frontier while
1
the fo cus of the coal district lies just within the Prussian
frontier against Russia near the point where the German
Austrian and Russian Empires meet an d is continuous
with th e min ing districts of Russian Poland from which
it is only separated by an artificial boundary
The existin g frontiers then do not e xpress e conomic
articulation but they correspond still less to the bound
aries of Nationality The German colonisation up th e
Oder never reached the head waters of the river Up to
a poin t between Brieg and Oppeln slightly above th e
confluence of the Neisse tributary the Oder is flanked by
a German population on ei ther side ; but above that
point though along th e mountain s the German element
stretches still further South and even spreads into th e
Moravian Gap as far as the water parting be tw een the
Oder and Vistula systems th e native Pole has main
tain ed himself astride the actual course of th e Oder and
is in occupation of the river s Left b ank as well as its
Right Above Ratibor again along the highest reach es
of th e Oder th e Pole is replaced by the Tch ech We
have to devise a new frontier which shall do more j u stice
th an th e present to national distribution wi thout running
violently counter to econo m i c facts
Th e Western frontier of th e Russian Empire and th e
New Polan d or in other terms the Eastern frontier of
Austria and German y migh t start from th e Hun garian
boundary on the sum mi t of the Carpath ians at a point
just East of th e pass th rough whi ch the railway connects
Sillein ( Zsolna) in Hungary with Tesch en in Austrian
Silesia and th ereafter with Ratibor in Prussian Silesia on
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Th e to wns
Mys lo witz fo rm
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fro n ti er
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Gleiwitz B eu th en K onigsh tte K atto witz
o n e p ractica lly co n tin u o u s u b an zo n e ski rti n g th e
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THE POLISH FRONTIER
th e
69
Left bank of the Oder Fro m 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 th e Oder s Righ t
ban k a few miles below Ratibor It migh t thence follow
th e Oder down wards to a point opposite the junction
of the Ho tZea Otz tributary from the Left bank and
then take a straight line slightly East of North to the
So u th ernmost point in th e province of Posen
This frontier would exclude from the new Poland the
Polish population on the Left bank of the Oder but even
along this section of the Oder s course it is only the rural
population that is Polish the towns on the river bank
— Oppeln Kosel an d Ratibor — are predominantly
German If moreover we allowed Russia to cross the
Oder and extend the frontier of her Empire right up
to th e Erz Gebirge we should be transferring to her
th e strategical command of the Moravian Gap placing
Vienna at her mercy and cutting the dire ct co m m u n ica
tion East of the mountains between the Prussian and
Austrian sections of Silesia
We are proposing on the other h and to include in
Poland the extremely important mining district of the
”
Five Towns
Germany will doubtless protest against
this on account of the considerable German population
that h as been attracted to this area by the openings it
offers 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 German y Moreover the German element here is
not merely a minority but actually a small and a d ecreas
ing one The mass of the miners and workers is
recruited from the Polish countryside and the growth
of the Polish majority has already made itself felt in
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PRUSS IANISM
79
politi cs In spite of o ff i cial pressure exercised upon
ele ctions the
Five Towns
now return Polish
Nationalist representatives to the Prussian Landtag and
th e Im perial Reichstag
The economi c issue raised by th e tran sference of this
distri ct to Poland is not so simple as th e national By
driving a political frontier between th ese coal min es in
th e corner of Silesia and th e industrial to wns furth er
North West w hich at present consume their output
shall we be ruinin g th e prosperity of both ? We may
answer th at a political frontier need not imply an in su r
moun table tariff wall yet if such a fiscal barrier were
to be erected in this in stance all parts of Silesia would
certain ly suffer economically for the adjustment of th e
co u n try s national problem Even in the latter case
however th e dislocation would only be temporary
There are coal seams in the German portion of Silesia
round Breslau whi ch could be developed to supply in
su fii cien cy that region s industri al demand
This would
of course deprive th e Five Towns of their current
market but th ey would rapidly find a new ma rket
towards th e East A considerable manufacturin g
ind u stry has already grown up in Russian Poland notably
in th e neighbourhood of Lodz It is capable of almost
limitless expansion because the huge agricultural and
pastoral hinterlan d of Russia is its potential customer
If the produce of th e frontier coal field s were diverted
from German Silesia hither the expan sion of Polish
manufacture would receive an immense impetus an d
would more than keep pace in its demand for coal with
Five Towns offered it
th e output the
The frontier line th en which we have suggested in
th e Sil esian section seems to stand the econo m ic as well
as the nationalisti c test We may now turn our atten
tion to the section that follows
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THE POLISH FRONTIER
71
(b ) The province of Posen is shaped like a flin t arrow
head with its wings resting on the present Russian
frontier an d its point directed in wards straigh t towards
Berlin Strategically as we have seen its control is
vitally important to German y for her se curity A
foreign power established in military possession of Posen
City could from this fortified base strike South -West
ward towards Glogau on the Oder , an d cut th e con
n ectio n s between Silesia and Berlin
or it could strike
North Eastward towards Dan zig on the Balti c and
isolate from the rest of Germany the provinces East of
the Vistula If the Russian General Staff were given a
free hand in Posen Germany would virtually cease to
be an independent power
In Nationality on the oth er hand Posen is p redo m in
1
It is a wedge of alien population driven
an tly Polish
deep into the German mass and the considerable
German minority is mostly concentrated on th e North ern
boundary along the River Netze Isolated German
enclaves however are scattered over th e whole area of
the province
These advan ce guards are not th e fruit of th e
Colonisation 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 th e
Middle Ages to civilise th e country
Their histo ry
therefore is above reproach and even had t h e title o f
the original settlers been doubtful that would not have
warranted us in treating the present generation with
less than justice
Nevertheless in so far as th e destiny of Posen is to
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Th e p o p u l atio n o f th e p ro vin ce to talled
Po lish elem en t n u m b ered o ver a m illio n
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1 90 5 :
th e
P RUSS IAN ISM
72
be
determined by the national factor this dispersed
min ority of German s is not sufficiently strong to retain
for Germany any part of the province but its North ern
frin ge an d we find ourselves placed in a d ilemma If
we give precedence to Nationality almost th e whole of
Posen s hould be ceded to the New Poland
if to
Strategy then no portion of th e co u ntry s hould be
detached from its present connections
There seems to be only one possible solution of th e
di fficul ty The overwh elmingly Polish districts mu st
be incorporated in the Autonomous Prin cipality an d
thi s mean s that they will come with in th e bond of th e
Russian Empire but Russia in return must allow th e
fortifications of Posen City to be dismantled and must
undertake not to push forward her military lin e in to th e
new territory but to keep it with in the limits of th e
present frontier
Military conventions of this kind which h ave no sanc
tion behind them but the good faith of the contra cting
parties are best secured by being made recipro cal and
th e 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 mi litary works in any of the te r ritories she may
acquire from Germany along the whole lin e from th e
upper Oder to the Balti c Germany migh t demo lis h in
compensation all fortifications in her provinces East of
th e Vistula and withdraw her strategical front to th e
line of the Vistu lan fortresses
Such an arrangement would greatly diminish the
e xtent to which each coun try was e xposed to an aggres
sive movement on th e part of th e other Of course it
would be in the power of either to break its word at any
moment and fortify the neutralised territo ry with in its
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THE POLISH F R O N T IER
7;
own frontier and this would give it a momen tary
strategical advantage over its more honourable neigh
bour ; but fortifications cannot be built in a day and the
other would immediately retaliate by doing the same in
its o wn neutralised area If as we have suggested fear
is a mo re potent stimulus of armaments th an ambition a
General Staf f would be very reluctant to increase th eir
power of o f fensive against the rival nation if they knew
that th e inevitable price would be similar action on the
oth er s part which would correspondingly diminish their
own power of defence A compact therefore which
strength en s the defensive capacity of both parties has
the greatest possible chance of stability
If such a compromise could be effected the new
frontier migh t ru n from the Southernmost corner of
Posen along the whole Western boundary of the pro
vince to the point where th at boundary h its the River
Warta After crossing the river the frontier should
chan ge direction abruptly to slightly North of Eas t and
take a course midway between the Warta and th e Netze
continuing in th e same line till it struck the Vistula
between Bromberg and Thorn This would leave
within German territory the whole course of th e River
Netz e an d also the canal which links the N etze and
Vistu la systems th rough Bromberg and is one of the
principal in land waterways of Prussia
(c) The lower course of th e Vistula from a poin t just
above Thorn to its mouth runs th rough th e German
province of West P russia which flanks the river on both
sides
West Prussia in sp i te of its name is a com
p arativ ely recent acquisi tion of the Prussian kingdom
It was only incorporated at th e first Partition of Poland
in 1 772 Before that date it had been Polish territory
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PR U SS IANISM
74
ever sin ce Y agiello n broke the power of the Teu to n ic
Knigh ts at th e battl e of Tannenberg in 1 4 1 0 A D
In th e manifesto addressed to th e Poles s h o rtly after
th e outbreak of th e war th e Grand Duke made a pointed
2
allusion to this historic victory and hin ted tha t if the
Ru ssian s and Poles in concert carry th e present struggle
to a triumphant conclusion West Prussia will be one of
the national heirlooms whi ch he will restore to the new
Polis h state
Th e Polis h claim to the province has strong argu
ments in its favour The Polish element is hardly less
3
im portan t here than in Posen
The Germans are in a
m ajority but th ey are concentrated in the great port
of D anzig and only thinly s cattered through th e rural
districts On stri ct grounds of nationality a strip of
West Prussia on th e Left bank of th e Vistula stretch
ing all th e way to th e Balti c so as to include a small
e xtent of coast immediately West of Dan zig ought to be
detach ed from Germany and added j ust like th e ma jor
part of Posen to autonomous Poland
Probably this would not content th e Poles For
economic reasons th ey covet the fundamentally German
clean
city of Dan zig and would th erefore insist on a
cut of th e whole province Polish an d German portions
alike although any such demand is of course refuted by
”
th e National Prin ciple itself Yet the mangled slice
”
clean cut receives a categorical veto
as well as the
from Geograp h y
Th e first kin g wh o ru l ed at o n ce o ver th e P o lish an d th e L ithu anian
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1
natio ns
.
Th e rev erse sustain ed a f ew w eeks afterwar ds o n this v ery spo t b y
th e R ussian arm ies in th eir first in vasio n o f Trans-V istu lan G erm an y,
h as m ad e th e nam e less au spicio us
11
A t th e Germ an census o f 1 90 5 th e po p u lati o n o f Wes t P ru ssia
were o flicially adm itted to
o f w ho m
to tall ed
b e Po l as
1
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76
PRUSS IAN ISM
the parties to th e European conference The n ational
ideals of th e West Prussian Poles are to be subordinated
to a paramount interest of the German nation It is
German y s part to see that th e sacrifice entailed s h all
be as light as possible and she must not be allowed to
repu diate her obligation
Moreover the exclusion of this half million of Po les
from their national state affe cts not only the disappoin ted
fragment itse lf but also the liberated Polis h nation
The new Autonomous State has a claim to compensatio n
for submitting to this national loss and the account can
b est be settled by an economi c concession
The Vistula is Poland s river It rises on th e Po lis h
flan k of the Carpathians both the national capitals
Cracow and Warsaw lie on its b anks and it is th e
main artery of the country s communications If the
lower reaches of the river and the numerous Po lish
popula tion that dwells along th em also must defin itively
remain outside th e new political fro ntier th ere is no
reason why Polish traff i c on the river should be barred
by a tari ff fence at this line A furth er condition for
th e retention of West Prussia must be imposed on
German y S h e must grant the new Poland free trade
do wn the Vistula to th e Baltic and throw open to h er
Danzig at the river s mouth as a free port
This provision is essential to Polan d s future pro s
parity
Its e xtortion through milita ry defeat may
wo und th e pride of th e German nation but its most
ardent advocates will be the great German busin ess
firm s at Dan zig itself who will be fully sensible of th e
possibilities opened to them by this immense extension
of their city s commercial hinterlan d
(d) We have still to discuss the frontier East of th e
Vistula Th e homogeneo u s German popula tion of
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T HE P O LISH FR O NTIER
77
East Prussia compactly mars halled along the B altic
coast between th e Vistula and the Niemen does not
properly come into question In all German y th ere is
no more German land than this We s hall doubtless be
reminded however that this inh eritance was won for
Germanism not by th e peaceful penetration of burghers
like Silesia and the fringes of Posen and West Prussia
Th e
but by the sword of th e Teutonic Knights
”
German s came h ere th e fanatical Germanophobe will
cry
by brute force : by brute force let th em be
”
expelled again
If historical arguments must needs be answered we
may point out that the folk they dispossessed were not
Poles nor even Slavs The original Prussian s belo nged
to a separate branch of th e Indo European family an d
were kinsmen of the Lith u an ians across th e Niemen ;
but th e German cru saders who set th emselves to root
out heath enism from this secluded corner of Europe
did th eir work so thoroughly that th ey an nihilated th e
heath en th emselves together with their beliefs No
native Prussian now s u rvives to Claim his ancestral
in heritance and the titl e remain s with his destroyers
who h ave robbed him even of his name and raised it
from an obscure tribal appellation to be the o fficial style
of th e greatest political organism t hat German y h as yet
created
The German -speaking region in East P russia th en
must be left on the same side of the frontie r as before
Its natural boundaries are shar ply defined towards every
qu arter not merely by the Sea on the North and th e
rivers th at guard its flanks but by the chain of th e
Mas urian Lakes th at stretch es parallel to the coast and
divides th e district from its hinterland
Th e Slav advan cing from the South -East has never
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78
P R U SS IANISM
penetrated th is barrier It s h eltered first the abo riginal
Prussian s and then their German namesakes from th e
Poles and in the present war it is proving itself a
form idable obstacle to th e Russi an armies ; yet while
Geog raphy has made it the perman ent strategi cal
frontier of East Pr u ssia th e politi cal frontier has never
coincided wi th it since the se ttl ement after Tan nenberg
but has kept to a quite artificial lin e drawn furth er in
land towards th e South
Th e strip o f country between this present frontier
and th e lakes could be detach ed from East Prussia with
out aff ecting the strategical situation and it is in habited
1
by a P olish population th e Masuri ans
Thi s is per haps
the only unit in the whole of th e Eastern frontier-zone
of Germany to which th e decision by plebis cite can be
applied and we must not neglect th e opportunity for
we cannot predict a p riori the choice the Masurian s
will make as we can predict that of th e other Pol es
Th ey h ave been united politi cally with their G er m an
ne ig hbours beyond th e la kes for considerably more than
five hu ndred years an d in the sixteenth centu ry th ey
foll owed them in their secession from th e Roman Chur ch
Th ey have shared since then in th e Lutheran culture of
Northern Germany It is hig hly probable that tradition
will prove a stronger factor t h an langua ge in determining
th eir nationality but certain ty will not be reach ed till
tha t nationality de clares itself in th e vote
(e) As far as th e Left bank of th e Niemen East
Prussia with th e possible exception of th e Masurian
unit will th us main tain its present connections We
have still to consider th e fragment of th e province beyond
the river s further bank This is th e only portion of East
P russia that ought undoubtedly to be ceded to th e
Th ey n u m ber abou t
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1
THE PO L ISH FRONTIER
79
Russian Empire The majority of the inhabitants are
Lithuan ians at present separated by an artificial line
from the mass of their fellow countrymen on the
Russian side of the frontier The only considerable
1
German enclave is the port of Memel situated on the
exit from the Kurisches Haff or lagoon into which
th e Niemen debouches ; but we can write off against
Memel the Lithuanian enclaves on the South bank of the
2
river which we propose to leave within the German
frontier and from the economic point of view Russia s
claim to Memel is as s trong as Poland s to West Pru ssia
Th e upper system of the Niemen provides waterways
for the traffi c of Russia s Lithuanian and White Russian
provinces and Memel is the natural point of connection
between this in ternal trade and the sea
We can now suggest how the frontier East of th e
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 th e
new principality for the present campaign has already
shown how a German force concentrated on th e lower
Vistula can from this base strike towards the interior in
any direction If Thorn remained in German y s hands
Poland would be exposed perpetually to a German
o f fensive and communication between Posen and
Warsaw might be cut at any moment In Polish h an ds
on the contrary Thorn would not be a menace to
Germany for the course of the Vistula below it is flanked
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Po pu latio n ,
1
There are
1
in 1 905
.
L i th u an ian s in E ast Pru ssia alto gether In
1 90 5 th e to ta l p o p u l atio n o f th e p ro v in ce was
S in ce th e
Masu rians an d Lithu an ian s am o u n t to gether to abo u t half a m illio n th e
Germ an blo ck m ust to tal a m ill io n an d a half
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80
PR U SS IANISM
by a series of German fortresses all th e way down
Th is is th e one instance we have encountered in which
th e strategical factor outweighs the racial to German y s
detriment an d not to her gain for Thorn is in h abited by
2
a German population
Beyond Thorn th e course of th e frontier will be deter
min ed by the Masurians choice If they elect to abide
by Germany th e new frontier after skirtin g Th orn to
the North will bend Eastward and co incide with th e
present line a few miles E ast of the fortress : if they
merge themselves in Poland the frontier will h ead North
Eastward towards the line of the lakes It will run
j ust South of Deuts ch Eylau Osterode and Allenstein
and parallel to the railway th at connects them Th en
leaving LOtzen to German y but giving Lyck to Polan d
it will converge upon the present frontier wh ere it is
in tersect ed by the 54th parallel of la titude
From this point th e new frontier will in an y case
follow th e lin e of th e old till it hits th e Niemen Th ence
th e Left bank of th e river will form the remainder of its
course
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Prussian S ta te an d Germ an N a tion
We have completed our survey of Germany s
Eu ropean frontiers and have found that however con
sid erately we tr eat her she cannot es cape W ith out very
serious territorial curtailment Can we reconcile h er
feelings to this necessary loss 9
If we glance back at the cessions we have deman d ed
from th e German Empire we shall see that nearly all of
th em are at Prussia s e xpense In fact our proposals
migh t seem in tended as a deliberate reversal of P russian
history
The acquisition of Silesia and th e Polis h
Grau denz Marien werder Marien burg
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P RUSS IA AND GERMANY
81
provinces first raised her to th e rank of a great power
The campaign against Denmark in 1 86 4 won her not
only Schleswig but most of Northern Germany two
years later Th e territory taken from Fran ce in 1 871
did not become Prussian soil but as the Reichsland
it symbolises th e hegemony over all Germany wh ich
Prussia attain ed through her French victory by th e
fo u ndation of the German Empire
Those to whom vae v ictis makes the paramoun t appeal
will here fin d 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
Your hopes of
an d mercy may prove the best poli cy
reconciling Germany are not so fanta stic as might be
supposed but the facts to which you have just called
our attention prove far more conclusively that you
cannot possibly reconcile Prussia We th erefore o ffer
you a general principle for your guidance Spare
German y by all means but humiliate Prussia without
restraint Destroy Prussia s hegemony in Germany by
liberating all th e German lands which she annexed in
Make them independent members of
1 8 1 4 and 1 86 6
a truly federal Empire and remove the diminis h ed
Prussia s last hold upon the remain der of the nation by
s tipulatin g in the terms of peace that the Hohenzollern
s hall resign th e dignity of German Empero r
You
can not make your peace with Prussia then you must
”
anni h ila te her with a ruth less hand
Our first reply to this will be that the interference of
foreign powers in a nation s internal affairs is th e sove
reig n mean s of weldin g togeth er th at nation s most
1
disco rdant elements
If we ordered Hanover to secede
Th e su ccess o f Bism arck s po licy is a co m m en tar y o n this fact
He in du ced fo rei gn ers to pu t sp o k es in to Germ an y s wh eel in o rder to
u se th em h im sel f as l ev ers f o r u p h eavin g G erm an y s n atio n al sen tim en t
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82
PRUSS IANISM
from P russia the Hanoverians would for the first time
realise their pride in Prussian ci tizenship and if th e
Kaiser were bidden doff his Imperial Crown Bavaria
would for the first time acclaim him whole heartedly as
her war-lord Instead of cru shing Pru ssia by isolating
her from the German nation we should most eff ectively
alienate th e German nation by rallying it round Prussia
So much is certain but we can clear up th e argument
more satisfactorily by thin kin g out What meanin g the
name Prussia conveys to our min ds
Historically the Prussi an is the Squire from beyond
” 1
the Elbe
a character in which we divine th e ferocity
of th e Borderer th e fanaticism of th e Crusader and the
dogmatism of th e Protestan t While be hin d th e squire
mar ch es the peasan t from his estate who seems to have
no life beyond obedience to his leader s commands and
to revert whenever he fin ds himself leaderless to the
habits of his barbaro u s an cestors in th e days before th e
squire appeared in the land
Looked at from one poin t of view th e growth of
modern Prussia is simply the story of how th is sinister
troop (hostility makes us distort th eir features beyond
th e truth ) has imposed its domin ation progressively upon
th e whole German world first stretching out its hands
from Elbe to Rhin e to swallow up th e North an d then
compellin g th e South to foll ow in its train We picture
th e
Prussian drill sergeant forcing th e too pliable
Rhin elan der into his iron mould and we feel that we
have been watch ing the deliberate depravation of a
”
nation s character
You m ay know Prussia
we
exclaim by h er fruits Prussianism made th e war an d
th e war is a disaster for German y and for the whole of
”
Europe
O st Elb isch er J u n ker
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84
PRUSS IANISM
ion These two Prussian areas have been the actual
theatre of this German achievement
Lo oked at from
th e economic point of View Prussia is not an incubus
which h as fastened itself upon th e German nation s life
but th e most vital element of that l ife itself which has
raised German y to her present pitch of greatn ess
The Prussian state may sti ll be controlled by th e
”
Ag rarian Interest
but the squirarchy is not th e
factor in Prussia which enables her to control in turn
th e rest of Germany
The German Empire is held
togeth er by the hegemony not of the Eastern mark
but of the Industr ial North Westphalia and Silesia
are not merely typical elements of modern German y
th ey are the country s core Junkerdom th e traditional
Prussia of the squire may s till ca ll th e tun e but no
music would follow if the resourceful in defatigable
Pru ssia of th e in dustrial workers were not there to trans
late the deman d into reality
Germany could never
have borne th e cost of her stupendous armaments if
th e new Prussia had not all the time been disseminating
her manufactures th rough th e markets of th e world an d
winnin g for her profits an ever increasing proportion of
the world s surplus wealth she could not have outdone
the armaments of Great Brita in an d Fran ce in quality
and elaboration as well as in mere mass had not West
phalia lent all her engineering skill to manufacture and
improve German y s armaments as well as to pay for
them The new Prussia h as virtually supplanted th e
old even in her own peculiar sphere : the works at
Essen are the drivin g force behin d the milita rism whi ch
we are combatting in this war and the Krupps have
eclipsed as the exponents of Prussianism the von
B lii ch ers and von B ulows
The futu re character of Prussia th en will in no case
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85
PR U SS IA AND GERMANY
be determined by the military caste which originally
built her up Already they seem to feel the reins slip
ping from their grasp and to suspect that the creature
will one day be impelled to deny his creator The
future however belongs to Herr Krupp as little as to
his aristocratic godfathers Behind the capitalist S tand
th e myriads of his workers All over Europe they are
comin g to realise the services of their class to the state
and its potential power in politics and they are reso lv
ing to conquer the position in society wh ich is th eir
clue ; but in Germany th e class consciousness of t h e
Workers is even stronger and their resentment more
bitter than in the countries of the West because
th ey are here thrust more ruthlessly into the outer
darkness
It is certain th at the German Workers will one day
Krupp may still claim all credit
come into their o wn
for the cannon and armour plate and hold h is o wn
again st his employees yet machines however perfect
do not constitute an army : its essence is always its men
Th e German General Staff boasts far more loudly of
its four million trained combatants than of its 42 centi
metr e guns and the new industrial Prussia supplies th e
blood as well as the gold and the iron The increase of
°
5o /0 in the population of the Empire between the years
1 871 and 1 90 5
h as been entirely urban The new
industry of the Westphalian and Silesian town s pro
duces th e subsistence for these new mouth s The
in dustrial centres have become the main reservoir on
1
which the General Staff depends for its recruits
In a m ilitaristic state political power gravitates into
B ern hardi in Germa ny an d th e N ext War discu sses this witho u t
app earin g to r ealise its sig n ifi ca n ce
H e n o tes an d d eplo res th e fact
th at th e to wnsm an is n o t su ch sym p ath etic m ateri al f o r th e A rm y as
th e p easan t
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86
PRUS S IANISM
the hands of th ose wh o bear th e military burdens It
has been hin ted th at the forces which now govern
Germany Capital and Privilege in coalition actually
precipitated th e war in order to forestall the outbre ak
of the in ternal class stru ggle and th eir o wn downfall
Whether there is an y tru th in this or not the so cial
problem in Germany will not be decided automati cally
in this sense or in that by victory or defeat An army of
workers elated by a military triumph and convinced
that it was due to their o wn organised endeavour and
sacrifice might well make short work after the war
was over of the un scrupulous directorate which had
deliberately in volved th em in t his fiery trial We have
seen on the other hand that defeat followed by undis
criminatin g humiliation might reconcile the prin cipal
victims to the s ch emers who were ultimately responsible
for both m isfortunes
In either case the attitude
of the industrial masses will be the important factor
and th eir state of mind in the event of th e Allies
victory will depend much more u pon how we deal with
them in the settlement at the close of hostilities th an
upon th e military results of the war itself
Here the beli ever in e xternal intervention will inter
”
rupt us again
I discern
he will exclaim
an
infallible means of securing for ourselves the gratitu de
an d sympathy of this industrial class whom you have
now proved to be the real Prussia of the future I no
—
longer propose to crush Prussia I see th at the Prussian
hegemony in Germany is synonymous with the natural
—
unal terable economi c supremacy of the North but I
do advo cate in tervention in the social evolution of
Prussia herself You say that the workers are bo und to
gain th e upper hand let th em gain it by our good
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O fi ces .
88
PRUSS IANISM
here tofore will make itself felt at las t an d will in spire
Prussian policy with a new spirit
Moreover this change of heart (your o wn phrase)
will prepare the way for a furth er salutary m o d ifica
tion of Prussia s equilibrium Formerly I proposed to
detach all th e liberal parts of Prussia from her irreclaim
able core : now I suggest that w e smo ther an d soften
th e core by re inforcing the fruitful fibres that surround it
You have poin ted out that the non Prussian com
m u n ities in Northern German y are i solated survivals
destined to ultimate absorption in their Pru ssian environ
ment Perh aps you have not sufficiently emphasised
th e ef fect th eir assimilation will have upon Pr u ssia her
self for their importance c annot be measured by their
territorial e xtent There are th e three Hansa towns for
in stan ce
Hamburg is the second largest city in th e
1
Empire even Bremen is bigger th an Danzig and th e
group as a whole conducts all the trade of th e Elbe
and th e Weser The barren naval bases of Cuxh aven
Wilh e lmshaven and Helgoland are the only mark
P russia s advent has made upon the North Sea coast
You have related again how the German national
consciousness was first fostered by German Intellect and
Art ; but if you call to min d the S piritual centres of
Northern Germany you will half fancy that th ey have
purposely been boycotted by th e Prussian frontier
—
Dresden Leipzig Jena Weimar Goth a not one of
th em lies on Prussian soil Berlin has s triven for a
century to array herse lf in their glories but th ere is
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Po p u latio ns in 1 90 5
B erkh
Ham b u rg
B rem en
D an zig
Lu b eck
PRUSS IA AND GERMANY
89
a tradition in th eir very names which she cann ot
plagiarise Finally I will meet you on your o wn 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 th e oth er
North- German elements will immensely strengthen that
industrial democracy whose triumph we wish to ensure
while they on their part will find no grievance in such
ch ange of status if it coincides with a radical revision of
the Pru ssian constitution guaranteed by the hand and
”
seal of Europe
There is far more wisdom in these suggestions than in
the programme they supersede The eradication of
Prussia hardly needed refutation but the liberalisation
of the Prussian constitution and the consolidation of all
North ern Germany within the Prussian state are clearly
essential steps towards a better future In t his instance
th e end is not at fault but only the means We shall
have to insist once more in reply that even the mildest
and most beneficial of internal transformations cannot
be e ff ected by external pressure that a ready made
constitution has no more charm t han a ready made coat
and that even if Industrial Germany accepted the
political costume we of fered her there would be no
telling in what fash ion our gift would be worn : she
migh t even give it a militaristic turn and disconcert us
by aping the
drill sergeants from whom we h ad
delivered h er Nevertheless when th ese objections have
duly been filed we shall probably admit that we h ave
sighted our desired goal if only some road thitherward
were apparent
The upshot of our discussion is this We hope f o r a
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PRUSS IANISM
99
far reaching ch an ge of equi librium in Nor th ern Ger
man y but we realise that if we meddle with the s cales
ourselves we shall end by inclining th e balance more
heavily then ever in the present direction The
auspicious revolution can only be produced by a
spontan eous internal movement
Can we promote or at any rate foresee any issue
which would rouse Northern Germany to cast out
Pru ssianism on its own initiative
We know the cause of Germany s devoted loyalty to
the military caste in the present war She sees in th em
th e cham pions of her nationality th e leaders in h er
life and -death struggle against a world in arm s One
thing alone would utterly discredit th e Prussian squire
archy in German eyes : if on some grave question of
state th e Junkers sacrificed th e national in terest to the
interest of their own tradition
We have seen that the keystone of Bismarck s policy
was the creed that Prussia s and German y s interests
were identi cal He equated th e unification of Germ an y
with t h e extension of Prussia s hegemony but his
doctrine had one stumbling block to overcome
it
involved the exclusion from the national Empire of
1
one sixth part of the nation s str ength the Germans
of Austria
The settlement between Prussia and Austria after the
Seven Weeks War of 1 86 6 was a violation of German
national tradition Since the
Great In terregnum
into which the Holy Roman Empire fe ll after the reign of
Frederick II in the thirteenth century German unity
had been little more than a name but the ghost of it
that lingered on had atta ched itself during the last four
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p k
l y
N o t co u n tin g th e G erm an - s ea in g S
b e rec o n e
erm an in nati o n a i t
1
k
dG
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w
iss,
wh o , o f co u rse, cann o t
P R U SS IAN ISM
92
wh o wo ul d be enabled by th is heig htening of th e od ds
to hold h er entirely at their mercy They wo u ld respond
to th e milita rists call for still greater armaments not
from motives of revenge so much as in self protection
again st a greater evil
Such misgivings would be set at rest completely by
th e reunion of the Austrian Germans with the Empire
Even if every Alsatian Sch leswiger and Pole managed
to e xtricate h imself from German y 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 e f fectively the e xternal problem of th e
nation with out seriously compromising his inte rnal
suprema cy within it
The economic primacy of Northern Ge rmany is
almost certainly su mcien t to outweigh A u strian Germany
in addition to th e South but to make th e contin uan ce
of their hegemony sure the North erners would probably
take of their own free will th e steps we so inten sely desire
The reinforcement of the Southern groups would give
Pru ssia and the Northern enclaves a strong mutual
interest of their own in consolidation an d this would
necessitate a prelimin ary reform in the Prussi an
franchise for Hamburg and Saxony would declin e
1
members hip of the Prussian state on the present terms
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No rth wo u ld p ro b ably evo ke a sim ilar
Th eir u ni ted
m o v em en t o n th e p art o f th e th r ee S o u th ern states
po p u latio n in 1 90 5 was o n ly
an d th eir ar ea
sq u re
a
m i l es
S in g ly th ey w o u ld fin d th em selves in a v ery w ea k positio n
between th e gr ea t Pru ssian an d A u strian u n its Th e n atu ral lin e o f
divisio n b etween th e co nso li dated states o f No rth an d S o u th wo u ld
start fro m th e Aus trian fr o n tier at th e extrem e N o rth West co rn er o f
Bo h em ia an d fo llo w th e pr esen t bo u n dary b etween B avaria on th e o n e
han d an d S axo n y an d th e Th u rin gian p rin cipalities o n th e o th er
Th en ce it wo u ld cu t in to w hat is n o w Pr u ssian territo ry p assin g slightl y
s se-D a m stad t (th e
S o u th o f Fu lda ti ll it hit th e bo un dary o f He
1
Th e co nso lidatio n o f
th e
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PRUSS IA A N D GERMANY
93
Thus the internal effect upon Northern Germany of
Austria s restoration to the Empire would immediately
prove fatal to the traditional Prussian ruling class They
would h ave the choice of letting th e reins drop quietly
from th eir hands or of being overthrown ignominiously
in th e eff ort to deflect the nation from its natural course
Th e revision of the Imperial constitution would crown
th eir d isco m fitu re
Under the present system the supremacy of Prussia is
vested in the Imperial title and privileges of her Hohen
Zollern king who is th e war lord and executive head of
th e whole nation ; but if the Hapsburgs return the
Hohenzollern can be suzerain no more Bismarck
ban ished the Hapsburgs from Germany because he
kn ew th at th ey could never take a subordinate place
wit hin it Hapsburg and Hohenzollern can only come
into p artners hip ag ain on terms of absolute equality
This does not mean the weakening of that unity with
which Germany was endowed by Bismarck : it only
mean s that un ity will no longer be maintained by a
monarc hi cal bond The Hohenzollern will sink to be no
No rthern blo ck o f th e prin cipality) It wo u ld co incide with this
bo u n dary alo n g its S o u th ern segm en t an d break n ext in to Pru ssian
Nassau f o llo wm g th e crest o f th e Tau n u s Mo u n tains till it reached th e
Rhin e o pposite B in gen
This wo u ld assign to th e S o u th n o t o n ly Hanau an d Wiesbaden b u t
Fran kfurt th e cen tr e o f G erm an railways an d fin an ce w hich h as b een
in co rpo rated in P russia sin ce 1 866
B y G eo grap hy th e wh o le b asin
o f th e Main b el o n gs to th e S o u th as w ell as th e u pp er b asin o f th e
Rhin e as f ar as Bin gen an d th e Tau n u s f o r at this po in t th e u n ited
stream fo rm ed thro u gh their j u n ction p ierce
s by a narro w d efil e a lin e
o f hills ath wart its co u rse an d en ters a n ew stag e w h en it em erg es again
in to th e o p en
B eyo n d th e Rh in e th e bo u n dary lin e wo u ld co in cid e with th e p resen t
bo un d ary between th e B avarian P alatin ate an d Rh em sh Pru ssia as f ar
as th e b o u n d ary o f th e
Reichslan d in th e n eighbo u rhoo d o f S aarge
m n d w h ere it wo u ld take to th e water p artin g b etween th e Rh in e
an d th e Mosell e till it reach ed th e fro n tier o f F ran ce
Th e positio n
o f th e F ranco Germ an fro n tier wo u ld o f co u rse d ep en d o n w h eth er
A lsace u nited herself with Fran ce o r with this n ew S o u th Germ an u nit
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PRUSS IANISM
94
more th an constitutional sovereign of th e new North
German state consolidated under the Prussian title an d
governed from Berlin the Imperial Reichstag will gain
corr espondingly in s cope and authority by th is relief
from monarch ical concurrence Th e national unity that
overrides federal particularism will thus receive in
Germany the same parliamentary expression that it
possesses in the
an d through th is common
democratic organ the v arious groups within th e nation
will be represented in the national co u nsels in strict pro
portion to their several importance On t his prin ciple
the North will preserve its leaders hip in German y
Germany will be freed from fear of her neighbours and
Europe will be reassured as to Germany s poli cy in the
future Th e eje ction of the Ho h enzollern from th e
hig hest place in th e Empire will be equivalent in
Eu ropean eyes to a renunciation of Prussian ism
These are great expecta tions but as far as Eu rope and
Germany are concerned th ere is no apparent obsta cle to
their realisation Ger any however is no more in
m
command of th e situation th an ourselves Everythin g
turns upon th e reincorporation of Aus trian Germany
and this lies in th e hands of the Austrian s alone No
one can compel th em to re-enter Germany against their
will nor prevent th em from doing so if they wis h
Will th e Germans of Austria be moved to take this
step or no f Certainly they will not take it to oblige
Germany or Europe Nations do not dispose of th em
selves upon altruisti c motives Austria will only seek
members hip in the German Empire if S h e finds her own
interest in doing so and obviously her interest will not
poin t this way unless th e result of the present war
upse ts the sta tus quo even more momentously for h er
than for Germany
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96
PRUSS IANISM
only be caused by some e xternal agency in their
despite
This defini tion of what a break u p of th e Hapsburg
Empire implies may forestall an objection that must
long have been in the criti c s mind
You talk very
”
glibly he will have been thinking
about reconciling
German y by giving her two fold compensation for her
European losses but perhaps her conquerors may find
such conci liation clear at the price Do you really
suppose tha t the Allies if they final ly beat Germany by
an e xhausting war will allow her to emerge even stronger
than before from the subsequent settlement 5
It is of course obvious that they will not an d the
objection is so far cogent It is not relevant however
to the case in question
During th e 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 s ingle
country has become the un it of power German y s
military strength can only be estimated in terms of the
whole group to whi ch she belongs and since the
German an d th e Hapsburg Empires have now been
1
p artn ers in in ternational politi cs for thirty fiv e years
we must for this purpose treat them as a sin gle block
It is true that the standard of so cial efli cien cy in
general and of military organisation in parti cula r is
considerably higher in th e German se ction of the block
then in the other so that the transference within the
block of an impo rtant element from th e inferior Ha ps
burg system to the superior German would certainly
increase the power of the block as a whole given that its
total composition continued the same If the break u p
of the Hapsburg Empire were merely nominal and the
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S in ce 1 879
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PRUSS IA A N D GERMANY
97
group which had formerly consisted of Germany and
Austria cum Hungary were reconstituted as German y
cum Austria and H u ngary then our critic s comment
would be quite in point The coalition would in deed
emerge stronger than before with a margin of increase
th at would cover the loss of a few border provinces and
the Allies could not suffer events to take such a course
This possibility is disposed of however by our con
clu sio n 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 o ff at
a tangent both from the Hapsburg state and from the
German coalition If this were to happen it would of
course immeasurably lessen the total offensive power of
German y and h er group and we could regard a con
sid erab le addition to the individual streng th of Germany
herself with perfect equanimity
We are accordingly faced with the question : will
the War produce a radical break u p of the Ha psburg
Monarchy and if it does on what lines will the dis
solution take pla ce 5
We s h all then find a further question awai ting us
Dissolution supposing we come to believe it probable
will certain ly c ancel the factors which at present render
union wit h Germany undesirable to Austria but it need
”
not in spire her with a positive desire for it If the
Hapsburg complexus 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 o u r Austrian
solution of the German problem as a certainty ; but we
must not be over has ty We will try to deal with only
one question at a time
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T HE V ITAL ITY OF A U S T RIA
98
CHAPTER III
THE
VITALITY
AU STRIA
OF
CA N the Hapsburg Empire survive the present crisis f
The question has been asked several times already during
the past century and has been answered invariably in
the negative yet th e Empir e still e xists and is playing a
leadin g part in international po liti cs at this moment
Twice over Austria was utterly defeated and sho m of
e xtensive territories by Napoleon only to emerge in
1 8 1 4 with wider frontiers than S h e possessed in 1 792
For th e ne xt thirty th ree years international statesman
s h ip took its cue from th e Austrian Ch ancellor Met
Then th e international revolution of 1 848
tern ich
overth rew M ettem ich with bewildering suddenness
an d it seemed as though the Monarchy would vanis h
with th e diplomat who in ca rnated its ideals
In this year it was buffeted from one quarter by th e
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 cr u sade against th e
alien master encamped on the Po On the oth er flan k
Tch ech s and Ma gyars renounced all parti cipation in a
Germanised state and summoned th e Hapsburg to
accept th e crowns of independent Bohemia and Hungary
at Prag an d Pé szo n y unless he were willing to forfeit
their allegiance altogether Even Vienna th e capital
an d core of the Empire rejected her native sovereign
Th e fire of Liberalism set th e Viennese population in
a bla ze : th ey made co m mon cause with th e Ma gyar
Liberals fu rth er down th e Dan ube and th e Emperor
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THE VITAL ITY OF AUSTRIA
1 00
and consummation Napoleon III dealt h er a hard
blow in 1 8 59 whi ch led directly to the establishment
of the Italian national sta te In 1 866 the new Italy an d
Prussia drawn together by coincidence of resentment
and ambition attacked Austria simultaneously from two
flanks and ousted her completely from the Italian and
Ge rman spheres Yet th e main body of the Empire did
not dissolve under these strokes external humiliation
merely opened a n ew epoch of in ternal evolution
The Hapsburg Monarchy then has resis ted the
shock of thr ee titanic phenomena : Democracy the
Risorgimento and B ismarck The earthquake carried
away Lombardy Venetia and the hegemony of Germany
—
two pinnacles and an ornamental fa cade—but the
b u ilding itse lf stood firm
So we might infer the
present cata strophe may detach Gali cia and possibly
Bosnia as well but still the Monarchy will not collapse
if it outlived th e nineteenth century it need have no
fear of th e twentieth
Nevertheless th e prophets of death have reason
though not precedent on their side
The Hapsburg state like the Prussian has gro wn out
”
of one of German y s Eastern marks
It is entirely
the creation of the Hapsburg Dynas ty which estab
lish ed its hold on the duchies of A ii stria and Styria in
when Rudolf of Hapsburg was Holy Roman
1 2 82
Emperor Round this nucleus successive generations
of Hapsburgs have gathered the present collection of
provin ces by conquest inheritance feudal escheat
marriage settlement free gift legal chicanery and all
th e other methods which contribute to the growth of
p rivate estates Austrian history has therefore been
domin ated likewise by the personal factor but here the
analo gy with Pru ssia ends : both developments are
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THE VITALI TY OF AUSTRIA
101
expressions of family character but their comparison
illustrates the marked divergence of Hapsbur g and
Hohenzollern 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 th e West never grasping too
eagerly but never relaxing his grip till his estates co
in cid ed 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 th e great
prize of Austria became his he lived in a castle on the
1
banks of the Aar from which he derives his family name
The warriors of the Five Cantons ejected him from his
ancestral dwelling when they founded Switzerland and
at present not one rood remains to him of this land nor
of Alsace and th e Black Forest his earliest acquisitions
He has own ed 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 durin g the present war and the occupa
tion of the Danubian principalities once carried him to
the Black Sea coast All these bizarre properties have
been lost to him but there is variety enough in the assets
that remain
Pr u ssia has made herself the exponent of German
nationality : modern Austria is representative of no
Th e ch ief S o u th ern trib u tary o f th e Upp er R hin e
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THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
1 02
nationali ty at all It is true that two small nations the
Magyars and th e Tch ech s are wholly contain ed within
her frontiers ; but these constitute no more than
2
and
per cent respectively of her total population
The majority that remains is composed of fragments
detached from six nationalities Germans Italians and
Roumans ; Poles Ruthenes an d Southern Slavs In all
th ese six cases th e main body of th e race lies beyond the
Austrian frontier whi le in four of them it is organised
in to a national state immediately conterminous with it
Germany Italy Roumania and Serbia are each waitin g
to claim th eir Austrian irredenta wh en the favour
able moment arrives
The Hapsburg Monarchy has set Nationality at
defian ce and th at is why th e prophets shake their heads
over its destin y What is th e secret of its extraordin ary
vitality which h as falsified all the prophets calc u lations
and enabled it to survive both in ternal dissidence and
pressure from without é An organ ism cannot thrive
with complete disregard to its envir onment If the
Monarchy has not adapted itself to the national principle
it mu st h ave responded to some other factor of equa l
significance in the modern world
We shall find th is 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 togeth er again hap
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W e m ight b rin g th e n u m b er u p to fo u r if we tr eated th e S lo vaks
l y
,
d p en d n t o f th e T h e h s a d di s tin g uish ed th e
th ern S l vs
S lo v es fro m th e S
To tal po p latio n o f A t ia H g ary
M gyars
Tch e h s S lo vaks
Th e fig es ar ta k n f m
as a n atio n a i t
in
en
1
e
c
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a
ou
us r
u
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th e censu s o f 1 900
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THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
1 04
intended to confine the chastened Magyars within iron
lim i ts It was therefore similar in design to the Mark
of Brandenburg which was founded during the same
period to protect Northern Germany against the
Sla vonic tribes likewise advancing Westward on th e
fur ther flan k of the Carpathians
Austri a however outstripped Brandenburg in its
early development Under the House of B ab en b erg
whi ch ruled it from its foundation until th eir own
e xtinction in 1 2 46 it grew steadil y in population and
extent : when the Hapsburgs took possession of it in
1 2 82 it included not merely Upper and Lower Austria
up to th eir present boundaries but the Mark of Styria
as well and was thus already one of th e most impo rtant
units in the German world
T his prosperity was due to the province s command
ing geographic al S ituation Vienna which has been its
capital since the m i ddle of th e twelfth century is th e key
to th e Danube b asin because it lies at one of the
1
prin cipal breaks in the river s course
At this poin t
two great mountain giants stretch out th e ir arms towards
the Danube from opposite sides On th e South West
the Alps press forward till their last spur th e Wiener
Wald plunges into th e stream imm ediately West of th e
ci ty : North Eas tward the Carpathian s spread their
wings fanwise and one of th em th e Little Car
ridge
descends
as
far
as
the
Nort
h
bank
of
t
h
e
a
t
h
i
an
p
Danube immediately E ast of the March tributary and
j ust above the Hungarian town of POS zo n y (Pressburg )
Between th ese two lines of mountains there intervenes
a strip of plain th e Marchfeld in the angle formed
by th e junction of the March with th e D anube
Across the Marchfeld A l p and Carpathian beckon to
ar e th e o th er
Th e Ir o n Gates
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THE VI TAL I TY O F A U S TRIA
105
Ki ev o
o Le m b e r
g
one another and the river whispers to all human way
farers from the South East th at th ey must slip through
this gap if th ey wish to reach his source since to left and
right th e mountains close th eir ranks and present an
impenetrable barrier Vienna however has seized
control of th is narrow gate
Ensconced between th e
Wiener Wald and th e Danube it commands the March
feld on the opposite bank A n army that traversed th e
plain from the East and sought to as cend the river
furth er in Vienna s despite would make the attempt
at its peril
Vienn a has proved its strategic worth against more
formidable enemies than the Magyar : in the sixteenth
1
an d seventeenth centuries it s hielded Germany
and
Western Europe from the Turk Th e two sieges laid to
it by the invader first in 1 530 and then again in 1 6 83
were the most critical moments in the protracted assault
upon Christendom but the Turkish tide found here its
Alb recht D rer s woo dcu t th e Gro sse Kan n o n e reveals h o w
d eeply a Tu rkish i n vasio n was dread ed in G erm an y abo u t 1 500 A D
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1 06
THE VITAL ITY OF AUSTRIA
high water mark After the crucial year of th e second
sie ge it ebbed steadily back and Vienn a ceased to be a
milita ry outpost as the border between Christendom and
Islam s hifted further and further down th e Danube again
Th us ended th e medi aeval phase of Vienn a s history
For seven hun dred years th e place was a fortr ess
severing th e upper from the middle b asin of the
Dan ube sin ce th en it has become an imperial city th e
centre of a state formed by th e union of both regions
within a common frontier S u p erficially this looks
like a complete reversal of char acter in reality Vienna
has risen to be th e capital of a great modern monarchy
pre cisely because it has continued to be th e point of
conta ct and division between two worlds
The portion of th e present Hapsburg Monarchy that
lies West of Vienna belongs to the industrial world
of Central Europe
The man u facturing district of
Reich enberg in th e No rthern corner of Bohemia is con
tin u o u s with the Saxon Black Country immediately
across th e frontier In Silesia we have seen how
negligible the political boundaries are from the economi c
poin t of vi ew Austrian and Prussian Silesia constitute
an indivisible economic unit and this un it in turn is only
one section of a vast industrial belt which begins in
Poland and e xtends Southward th rough Moravia and
Lower Austria as far as Styria beyond the Danube on
th e Alps South Eas tern slope
The po rtion of the Monarch y that lies East of Vienna
presents a striking economic contrast The immense
plain of alluvium deposited by the Danube and the
Th eiss which opens out below Buda Pest and is kn own
”
as th e A lf Old specialises in the production of wh eat
The mountainous country between the
an d horses
Drave and th e Adriatic is devoted to stock breedin g
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THE VITAL I TY OF AUSTRIA
1 08
head to foot of the Empire like a spin al cord and the
Hapsburg domin ions have consolidated themselves
round this central conductor of e conomic life Hapsburg
terri tories beyond the range of the Danubian nervous
system have inevitably fallen away an d been absorbed
in o th er organisms while territories within its compass
have been irresistibly drawn into the Hapsburg sphere
and vitalised into an organ ic whole
The centripetal prin ciple we divined in the Hapsburg
Monarchy reveals itself therefore as economic The
Monarchy has accommodated itself to the cur rent set
going by the Indus trial Revolution of th e e ighteenth
centu ry an d this augurs strongly for its survival The
economic factor operated side by side with the nation al
in the mouldin g of n ineteenth -century Europe The
territorial simplification which we have noted in general
and traced more closely in the Hapsburg instan ce
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 civilisation they wil l play the dominant rOle
The settlement of 1 866 then brought the Hapsb u rg
Monarchy economic unity and equilibrium A living
organism cannot however remain static : to survive
it must grow A ll states are in process either of growth
or of decline and they are inevitably reduced to the
latter phase by failure to succeed in the former Un til
1 866 Austria wasted her str ength and jeopardised her
future by failing to recogn ize her Danubian character
Bismarck and the Risorgimento taught her by a rude
lesson that the true field for her expansion lay neith er
towards Italy nor towards Germany but in the same
direction as the Danube s current Thenceforth Austria
set her face steadfastly towards a South Eastern horizon
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THE V ITALITY OF AUSTRIA
1 09
h as taken a very sinister
This trend Eastwards
comple xion and h as even occasioned th e present war ;
yet its motive force is not the dynastic ambition wh ic h
govern ed Austr ia s development as recently as th e
Napoleonic period
It is only partly accounted for
by that national chauvinism of th e Prussian type
which du ring the l ast century h as been superseding th e
rivalries of Autocracy and caricaturing th em in its
exaggerated egotism
The essence of the movement
is not militaristic but economic It is the penetration
of an in dustrialised unit in search of wider markets and
wider sources of raw prod u ce into regions still on th e
far side of the Industrial Revolution
The most S triking e xpression of th e Eastward Trend
is the position won by the Austrian Lloyd Steams hip
Compan y in the traffi c of th e Levant You can board
th ese steam ers bound for Trieste at every great port in
th e Nearer East Th e express service from Alexandria
has become the favourite route of British o fficials
return ing from Egyp t and the Soudan on leave and the
Company has had the enterprise to run another service
so far afield as Bombay and Ceylon in order to capture
th e passenger traffic from British India as well Batoum
th e port of Russian Caucasia is anoth er terminus of th e
line and it serves th e whole of Asiatic Turkey for th e
carriage of th e European mail In all th e E ge m you
will not meet fin er s hips th an th ese an d they produce
th e sense of some strong civilised power behind th e
horizo n
As soon as you have passed Corfu the impression
deepens
Serious competition from the French
Messageries Maritimes or from the various Italian
lines ceases conspicuously at the mouth of the
"
Dran g nach Osten
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THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
1 10
Adria tic an d th e whole trade up the East coas t of
1
th is gu lf is monopolised by the Lloyd
In Epirus and Albania th e Lloyd stands for European
civilisation It provides the onl y means of transport
for no practicable roads have yet been constructed on
land
Goods mails and travellers depend upon it
entirely for local as well as for foreign traffi c : in th e
squalid coast towns th e arrival of the Austrian packet
boat is th e event of th e week and even the hostile
Montenegrin s cannot aff ord to boycott it from th eir
more imposing harbour of An tivari
Montenegro is an improvement upon Albania Here
for th e first time th e steamer can come dire ctly alongside
a quay instead of anchoring a mile out and transacting
her busin e ss by means of lighters plyin g clums ily to
and fro across the strip of s hoal water inshore Wh en
however you leave Antivari be hind an d turn to enter
Cattaro Fjord you stumble suddenly in to European
civilisation As th e reaches of th e Bocche open out
fin ely metall ed and graded roads substan tially built
cottages and beautift
terraced mountain slopes pre
sent th emselves o n either hand and a general air of
prosperity and good management pervades th e scene
Thereafter you touch in succession at the Dalmatian
ports— Gravosa Spalato Sebenico—each busier th an
the last and you wonder cu riously in what this se ries
will culm inate and what is the fountain h ead of th is
continually intensified econo m i c activity th e first
symptoms of w hich you encountered in such distant
quarters In Dalmatia as in Krete an d th e Morea
your imagination is fired by the majestic remains of
Th e Un g aro C ro ata lin e fro m F iu m e is an artifi cial en terp rise
with th e sam e po liti ca l in ten tio n as th e recen t attem p t to m a ke H u n gary
in du strially in d ep en den t o f Aus tria by th e d ev elo p m en t o f H u n garian
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THE VITALITY OF AUSTR IA
1 12
Th e economi c solidarity of th e Empire was strikin gly
The Ministry for
i llustrated during the crisis of 1 90 8
Foreign Affairs had seized the oppo rtunity of th e Turkis h
Revolution to procl aim the formal an nexation of th e
”
Occupied provinc es
Bosnia Herzegovin a
Th e
inhabitants of the district are South ern Sla vs and th e
act was a much heavier blow to Serbian nationalism
which still aspired to in corporate the territory in th e
Serbian state th an to Ottoman Imperialism wh ich had
long resigned itself to a merely nominal suzerainty
Th e an no u ncement accordin gly aroused the deepest
resentment throughout th e Slavonic world and not
least among th e Slavonic citizens of th e Empire itself
The Slavs however could m ake no reprisals Russia
was paralysed by d isaster in th e Far East and revolution
at home pro Serbian demonstrations wi thin the Haps
burg Monarch y itself were vigorously suppressed by th e
gove rnment and Serbia was impotent without e xternal
suppo rt Turkey on the other hand was able to re
taliate most e f fectively by boyco ttin g Austrian shipping
along her whole imm ense coast line and eschewin g the
use of Austrian manufactures In particular th e 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 happened to have
1
become lo calised in Bo h emia and so the Turkis h reto rt
hit the German and Magyar elements in th e Monarchy
who were really responsible for the government s action
far less severely than the Tch ech s its bitterest opponents
Austrian O fficial Circles might therefore have been
R eichen b er g th e chief in du strial cen tre o f th e p ro vin ce lies in a
Germ an sp eakin g distri ct ; b u t th e who le o f Bo h em ia Tch ech an d
Germ an p o rtio ns alik e h as beco m e th o ro u gh ly in dustrialised durin g
th e last cen tu ry
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THE VITAL ITY O F AUSTRIA
1 13
expe cted to congratulate themselves on killing two birds
with one stone Yet the economic interaction of each
part of the Monarchy with every other is so close an d
Bohemian industry is such an indispensable element in
this delicate rhythm tha t the effects of th e lo cal blow
made th emselves universally felt Instead of rubbing
its han ds the Ministry for Foreign Aff airs was brought
to its knees an d strenuously exerted itself on the
Tch ech s behalf
The Turkish Government was able to
extort more th an adequate material reparation for the
Monarchy s moral delinquency before it gave the signal
for th e boycott to cease
Th e breac h with Turkey in 1 90 8 was an interlude
Since the Balkan crisis which culminated in the R u sso
Turkish war of 1 878 the Hapsburg and Ottoman
Empires have normally main tained a good understand
ing and the birth of this friendship was followed
immediately by the alliance with Germany in 1 879
This triple association which has endured ever since
and has embarked in common upon the present war is
likewise explained by the economic situation If Pan
germ an politicians dream of eventually consolidating
a zone of territo ry from Hamburg on the North Sea
to Koweit on the Persian Gulf into a single political
unit th is is simply a hypoth etical expan sion of the
grouping which already e xists in miniature in the Haps
burg Monarchy itself The Hapsburg state is built up
out of the industrial districts West of Vienna and the
agrarian districts East of it : the Pan germ an Con
federation would include the whole of industrialised
Central Europe on th e one hand and a proportionate
agrarian element in South Eastern Europe and Nearer
Asia on the oth er
There is considerable economic justification for this
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THE VITAL ITY O F AUS TR IA
1 14
programme
Geograp hy has imposed th e
Trend
Eastward
upon th e younger industry of Central
Europe as in evitably as she summoned th e older
in dustry of the West to th e Atlantic and to th e colonial
areas which lay along its hi ghways Yet Pan germ an ism
has set itself a diffi cult and perha ps a disastrous goal in
determ in ing to convert this economi c possibi lity in to a
political fact It has begun by challenging the rest of
Europe to a mortal duel upon thi s issue We ha ve good
hope that the battle will end in th e d isco m fitu re of the
aggressor and th e frustration of his plans but even if
he were victorious in the war he wo u ld fin d himse lf
hardly nearer to his objective He hopes to fas hion a
vast political structure upon his economic framework
he has first to learn wheth er this b as is su flices for th e
exe cution of a less ambitious piece of crafts mans hip
Will the cen tripetal force of economi cs finally over
come the centrifugal force of Nationality in th e present
3
Hapsburg Empire
The programm e of P n germ an ism
a
stan ds or falls by the answer to this question an d it is
also a repetition in more precise terms of th e ques tion
we asked ourselves at the close of th e last chapter
Will the Hapsburg Empire break up as th e result of this
war ? Our attention is re called to the internal stru e
ture of the Hapsburg state this time in its political
aspect
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Th e co u ntries whi ch have coalesced into th e present
Hapsb u rg Empire are some degrees removed from th e
original centres of modern European civilisation an d
,
Th e Ger m an o -Aus tro -Tu rkis h l eagu e h as p ro v ed itself firm er
"
Trip le Allian ce, o f w hich Italy, no t Tu r key, is th e thir d
th e o ffi cial
I ta ly j o in ed th e Cen tral Euro pean po wers in 1 882 o n
m em b er
acco u n t o f a tem po r ary eco n o m ic clas h with Fran ce, b u t h er fu n da
s ts, as w e shall see later, are en tirely d ifieren t fro m thei rs
m en tal in tere
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1 16
THE VITAL I TY OF AUS TRIA
kin g and attempted by means of Strong Govern
ment
to wren ch unenlightened populations out of
their ch erished traditions and convert them forcibly by
the accomplished fact Neglectin g all local dif ferences
of lan guage religion and custom he proceeded to t e
fashion hi s dominions on a pedanti call y 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 th e course of th e Monarchy s internal history
ever since
He contrived to range Nationality an d Enlighten
ment in opposite camps His dogmatic disregard for
national feeling awakened it into franti c life an d it
arrayed itself for the battle not in th e Rights of Man
(of which it had never heard ) but in the fa m iliar
harness of medi e val vested in terests The centres of
”
nationalisti c resistance were the provincial estates
bodies representative not of peoples but of castes
They were dominated by th e nobility and the Church
S O that nationalism in the Hapsburg Empire started with
1
a strong feudal and clerical bi as whi ch h as left per
manent e f fects The movement has remain ed legalistic
instead of becoming p h ilosophic It loo ks to th e past
rather th an to the future and has fallen a willin g victim
”
to the malady of
historical sentiment
Joseph s death in 1 790 concluded the first bout
in th e contest between enlightened despotism an d
nationalisti c reaction but th e factors of success an d
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This is tru e o f th e di fferen t m o vem en ts i n vari o u s degrees Magyar
n ati o nalism f o r in sta n ce h as b een w h o lly aris to cratic an d n o t cl erical
am o ng th e S l o v en es w h ere th e n o b i li ty w as G erm an cl er icalism h as
na ti o n al f eeh n g am o n g th e Tch ech s was
till r ecen tly b een su p r em e
fo stered in i ts earlier p hase by th e C hu rch an d th e o rigin ally Germ an
1
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bility in co j u n ctio
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THE VITALITY O F AUSTRIA
H 7
failure were too evenly divided between th e two forces
to allow a speedy decision
The struggle continued
in termittently till the revolutionary year of 1 848 brought
it to a head
We have already seen how Hapsburg autocracy was
overthrown in one year only to rise again in the next
how the national principle was champion ed by the
Ma gyars who were willin g to take up arms on its behalf
and how their heroic resistance to Francis Joseph s
armies was overcome by the intervention of Nicholas
his accomplice
From 1 849 to 1 86 1 Joseph s theories seemed to have
triumphed but in the bitterness of the conflict despotism
had discarded its enligh tenment A uniform regime
of absolutism was imposed upon the whole Monarchy
and the o fficia l use of German the language of the
Viennese bur eaucracy was universally enforced with
out regard to the nationality of t h e governed Suc h a
s ystem could not last because its spirit was entirely
negative It was created to repress the evolution of
nin eteenth century Europe an d was bound to succumb
under the wave s return
The external blows which forced th e Monarchy to
resign its Western ambitions and set it free to pursue
the economic career of a Danubian unit had an equally
momentous effect upon its internal politics
The war of 1 859 induced the government to temper
centralisation by the grant of a constitution The
provincial estates or diets were called into e xistence
again though their traditional institutions were n o w
standardised to an o ff i cial pattern and each diet was
empowered to elect representatives to a two ch ambered
parliament for the whole Monarchy ; but the utter
deb cicle of 1 866 followed hard upon this concession
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1 18
T HE VITA L ITY OF AUSTR IA
and the government found itself at its subjects
mercy
At this crisis the initiative was seized by the Magyar
nation Th e relative weight of their numbers in the
motley population of the Mon archy the corporate
feeling in spired in th is mass by the tragedy of 1 849 an
inherited politi cal tradition and able leadership in the
present all combin ed to give them the mastery of the
situation They were able to dictate their own terms
and the Ausgleich or Compromise which they
imposed upon th e Dyn asty h as remained th e basis of
the Monarchy s internal organ isation ever since
Th e prin cipal terms of the compact were as fo llows
(i ) Hungary recovered her separate existence as a
state with the territorial e xtent traditionally claimed by
”
Crown of St Stephen and with Magyar as its
th e
’
o fli cial language
(ii ) This state was organ ised as a constitu tional
monarchy and the sovereign ty was declared hereditary
Francis Joseph and his
in the Ho u se of Hapsburg
heirs were to reign with the title of king after co ronation
at Pest
(iii ) Th e new Hungarian Kingdom was made
autonomous in every department of political activity
with three exceptions
(a ) Foreign Af fairs including th e Consular Service
(6) Naval and military org anisation
(c) The budget required for these purposes
(iv ) The control of th ese three departments was
vested in an organ of authori ty common to Hungary
and the rest of the Monarchy and the character of the
common institutions was jealously defined
(a) Hungary s allegiance to them was conditional
upon the establishment an d maintenance of a unified
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THE VITAL ITY OF AUSTR IA
1 20
in dependence Durin g th e war of 1 849 th e Ma gyars
had deposed the House of Hapsburg denoun ced all
connection with th e o ther parts of th e Monarchy and
procla imed Hungary a republic
Thi s declaration of
the national will had been nullified by brute force for
seventeen years the national freedom had been paralysed
by a tyrannical regime an d now at last in 1 866 the bonds
were broken in sunder A fter passin g th rough such
an experience as this the Magyars might have been
expected to assert th eir in dependence more vehemently
than ever before Yet in this supreme moment the
” 1
nation was guided not by the violent Ko ssu th ists
but by th e moderates under De ak : it chose co n stitu
tio n al monar chy within th e Hapsburg complex instead
of republican in dependence outside it
The Magyars are strongly in fluenced by sen timent
and this ch oice involved the most severe sentimental
sacrifices Their constancy in abidin g by it th erefore
proves that since 1 848 they have become conscious of
a higher necessity whi ch impe ls them to main tain the
Hapsburg unit unbroken
The Austrians on th eir part made perhaps even a
greater sacrifice in acceptin g the Magyars terms
Sentiment they could not have saved for it was bound
up with th e mainten ance of th e Germanising regime
and since the deb cicle that was of course beyond their
power but it might appear th at they would have con
su lted their material interests better by resortin g to the
other e xtreme and breaking o ff from Hungary altogeth er
The compromise imposed upo n them a disproportionate
share of the common burdens they m u st accordingly
have found that co -operation with Hungary brought
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Lo u is Ko ssu th was th e Magyar exp o n en t o f th e id eals o f 48 an d
h e was p res i d en t o f th e H u n garian rep u blic in 1 849
’
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THE VITAL ITY OF AUSTRIA
121
th em more than adequate material compensation in oth er
directions
The e xplanation lies in th e economic structure of th e
Danubian unit which we have already analysed The
Ausgleich is simply the political expression of the
economic situation The Austrian half of t h e Dual
Monarchy corresponds to th e industrial region above
1
Vienna the Hungarian h alf to the agrarian region below
it
Their economic interdependence is recognised in
the common tariff : Hungary abandons the possibility
of building up an indigenous industry of her own by
protection against Austrian m an u f actu res in order to
secure a virtual monopoly of the Austrian market for
foodstuff s and raw produce The value of political
massiveness in the competition of international com
merce is recognised in the three Jo int Ministries
Austria helps Hungary to pay her way because these
common organs enable her to draw on Hungary s
strength as well as h er own for the diplomatic and
military support of h er commercial expansion
The political powers then which control respectively
the Aus trian and the Hungarian half of the Monarchy
have reckoned with the economic factor and have both
concluded th at it is th e determining force in their
politi cal destin ies They see that neither of them is
economically strong enough to stand alone and that
th e alternative to Dualism is not independence but
the in corporation of each in an oth er group or unit
Yet why should suc h a change of grouping be
essentially less desirable for them than the present
arrangement ? It need involve no economic loss : we
Th e p ro vin ce o f D al m atia b elo n gs to Austria tho u gh it lies f ar
do wn th e Ad riatic o n th e o ther S id e o f th e Cro wn o f S t S tep h en s
str ip o f co ast lin e
b u t it is an insignifican t excep tio n d u e to chan ce
rath er th an d e
s ign
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THE VITAL ITY OF AUSTRIA
122
can imagin e conditions under whi ch it would actually
be advantageous Suppose th e Central Powers won
this war and realised the Pan germ an s dream by building
their politico -e conomic confederation from Hamburg
to th e Persian Gulf this colossal complex would
naturall y articula te itself into two groups The German
Empire and Austria would coalesce to form th e industrial
half : the agrarian h alf would constitute itself out of
Hungary th e Balkans and the Ottoman Empire
It might seem that Austria and Hungary would both
gain by such t e organisation We have allowed that
the Germans of Austria would be degraded to a second
ary rOle in th e German Empire ; but me anwhil e we
have d is covered that they cannot stand alone For
them it is merely a choice of yoke fellows and their
mightier kinsmen of North ern Germany would be
more sympatheti c companions th an th e Magyars with
their alien speech and inferior cu lture Moreover as
members of a con solidated German block they would
obtain much better terms in a new Ausgleich with th e
agrarian win g than they enjoy in their present Ausgleich
with th e Crown of St Stephen
The Magyars on th eir side would gain consider
ably in political importance In th e Dual Monarch y
Hungary is no more than an equal if not actually an
in ferior partn er : in a new South Eastern group her
comparative population wealth and culture would give
her u ndisputed leaders hip
Th e loyalty with whi ch both parties have clung to th e
Ausgleich must therefore depend upon some fu rth er
factor in addition to the economic
We have seen that the Ausgleich takes full account of
th e e conomi c facts
It is a compromise be tween unity
and in dependence dictated by economic ne cessity
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THE VITALITY O F AUSTRIA
124
remain der : actually it was concluded between th e
Ma g yars of Hungary a strong minority and th e
German s of Austria who constituted no more than
per cent of th e e xtra Hungarian or Austrian
population in
In this light the Dual S ystem acquires a sin ister
connotation It could fairly be represented as a
conspiracy between the two strongest nationalities in
the Hapsburg Empire for the concerted oppression of
th e rest
From 1 849 to 1 866 the entire population of
the Empire was subjected to compulsory Germanisation
but the buf fets the German master received from his
enemies in 1 86 6 so weakened him that he was driven
to take one of his serfs into partnership He stru ck a
bargain wi th th e Ma gyar the slave with th e most
powerful fists He raised him to be his peer made
over to him a large S hare of h is land and chattels to deal
with as he pleased and obtained for himself in return
immunity to exploit the remainder of his ill gotten
poss essions just as u nscrupulously as ever
The
Ausgleich registers no real advance in politi cal ideals
After its ins titution 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 Magyars muster between them only
per cent of the total population Th ey will not
succeed in e xploiting the majority for ever If they rely
upon economic solidarity to cover their sins they are
leaning on a broken reed for we are in presence of a
factor infin itely stronger than th e economic M an is
Pop u latio n o f A ustria
Germans
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THE VITALI TY OF AUSTRIA
125
no more exclusively homo eco n o m i cu s th an he i s
homo sapiens
his motives are determined neither
by free choice nor by mechanic al 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 amoun t of economic pressure Wi ll stifle a
growing nationality s revolt against injustice The
break u p of th e Dual Monarchy would dislocate the
economic life of oppressors and oppressed without
discri m in ation but the latter will assert their freedom at
the cost of an y 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 th e fif ties is out of the question
th e alternatives before th e Monarchy are thorough
devolution to all nationalities alike or a series of national
secessions wh ich will be equivalent to a break u p
We have now defined our original question within
narrow limits To forecast the fate of the Empire
after th e present war we have to e xamine wheth er the
tendency towards devolution has been on th e increase
or on th e decrease durin g th e forty-seven years since
th e Dual System was established A house th at re
main s divided against itself must fall in the end Has
the rift grown so wide th at th e Hapsburg Monarchy
must succumb to the first tremor of earthquake or is
it so n early closed that t h e danger point is passed
and th e building can defy even the most appalling
shocks ?
To dis cover th is we must review the in ternal politics
of th e Monarchy since 1 86 7 There are two strands
of development to follow for under the Ausgleich th e
Crown of St Stephen has disengaged itself from the
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T HE VITALI TY OF AUSTR IA
1 26
rest of th e Danubian Unit and led a separate life of its
o wn
We will leave this junior Hungarian partner for
the moment and concentrate our attention upon the
1
Austrian
half of th e complex whi ch has continued
in the direct line of the Hapsburg tradition
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The Ausgleich stipulated for the establ ishment of
parliamentary government in th e Austrian as well as
th e Hungarian state
The country thus re awakened
to political life found itse lf div ided into two camps
On th e one side stood th e Parti cularists who had
beaten Joseph eighty years before They championed
the traditional rights of th e provin ces and preferred th e
most conservative measure of lo cal Home Rule to the
most l i berally conceived centralist constitution Demo
cracy was indif ferent to them for th eir main stays were
still the nobili ty and th e Church and th eir influence was
confined to the backward provinces
They were not primarily nationalists One of th eir
2
strongholds was the Tyrol a purely German district
more devoted to the Dynasty than any oth er part of the
Empire It was P articularist because the u n so phisti
cated peasants had not emancipated themselves from
clerical leadership and because the province itself is
mountainous and isolated Another Particularist strong
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yl
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a s u rg state h as
een th e
S in ce 1 86 7 th e o fii cial st e o f th e
"
us trian
n
u n g arian ha l is n o t
u n g arian Mo narch ,
e
t
t
h
e
n
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tech n ica
Th e o n o fi CIal
ustrias
ar e th e two
en tit e
ustr ia
D an u ian arch- u chies, th e o ld erm an m ar , an d th e co rrect tit e o f
h o e seem s to b e th e kin g o ms an d
th e n o n - u n garian
ar tn er as a
ienna
an s re resen te in th e
eichsrath at
co n en ien t, tho u gh
u ite u n o fii cial o rm u a is
Cis-L eith an ia
an d
Trans-L eith ania
Th e L eitha is a S o u thern tri u tar o f th e D an u e, hich o rm s th e
b o i n d ary et een th e two sectio ns o f th e D u a Mo narch f o r a f ew
'
1
A
b
l d
q
i
in l a
s
lly
H
H
p
l dA
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d
R
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l
G
w l
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ly
V
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r f t co u n tin g th e
S o u ti
2
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b w
y
f
Italian sp eakin g Tren tin o app en d ed to it o n th e
-
1 28
T HE VI TAL ITY O F AUS T R IA
h er into a closely knit e fficiently organised industrial
1
state
The Liberals found th eir chief support in the German
element especially in the provinces of Lower Austria
an d
Styria
The reactionary sympathies of th e
Tyrolese were as exceptional among the German s of
Austria as they were normal among th e Slavs and the
German nationality contributed an overwhelming
proportion of th e commercial and professional classes
by whom the new Austria was to be buil t up
The Liberal Party accordin gly envisaged its poli cy
from a German point of view They contemplated
the Germanisation of th e Austr ian state not so much
throug h national chauvinism as because unif ormity
was part of their th eoreti cal programme and was only
conceivable on a German bas is
The Liberals of 1 86 7 met wit h far more success th an
their imperial forerunner Th e leaven had worked its
way deeper since his time The philosop h er auto crat
h ad wrestled alone against all his subjects : now his
ideas were being put into action by the best educated
an d best organised se ction of th e pop u lation itself
Moreover th ey were setting th emselves a more modest
task Joseph h ad grappled with the whole Hapsburg
Empire : th e Liberals were loyal an d convinced sup
porters of Dualism By lettin g the
Crown of St
Step h en go its own way they had relieved th emselves
of th e more backward and stiff necked half of the
Dan ubian Unit and saved all th eir energies for dealing
with th e rest
In th e parliamentary struggle with the Parti cularists
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Th e ap plicatio n o f th eir p o h ti cal creed to eco n o mi cs led th em to
Th ey were
th e sam e co n clu sio ns as th eir E n g l ish p red ecesso rs
co n vin ced F ree- trad ers
1
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THE VITALITY OF AUSTRIA
1 29
the Liberals won an easy victory Th e Ausgleich
itself gave them a preliminary advantage by stipulating
for unified parliamentary government A common
constituent assembly had to be summoned as we have
seen to ratify the Compromise on Austria s part and
1
this body proceeded in the same session to frame a
parliamentary constitution on centralist lines On
this occasion and on many others th e Parti cularist
Bo h emian depu ties 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 quorum 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 country by passing in 1 86 8 a
series of laws which uncompromisingly abolished the
2
civil authority of the Catholic Church
In 1 87 1 the
Tch ech s made their supreme e ff ort for the restoration
of the Bohemian kingdom and failed
In 1 873
Centralism ac hieved its fin al triump h by carrying a
law which took the election of parliamentary deputies
fro m the provincial diets and transferred it to the direct
vote of th e constituencies
The Liberals however had a S hort career They had
shot all t heir bolts Austria was freed from her most
galling medi e val handicaps and initiated into her
industrial phase ; the party had no more to o f fer the
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D ecem b er 1 86 7
Jo sep h h ad already do n e th is wo rk, b u t th e eccl esiastica l o rganisa
tio n h ad b een swep t b ack in to p o wer by th e re actio n ag ainst th e
.
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Revo lu tio n Th e co n co rdat o f 1 85 5 b etween Vi nn ese Abso lu tism
an d P ap al Ob scu an tism h ad g iv en th e C h u
h al m o st co m p lete p o wer
o ver m arria ge an d edu ca tio n in th e Hap sb u rg Mo narch y
e
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r
rc
.
THE VI TALITY O F A U S T RIA
1 39
co u ntry and its influence began to dec lin e A fin ancial
crisis in 1 873 tainted it with discredit and six years later
it fell
The era of Liberal reform was followed by a lull
1
For fourteen years Austria acquiesced in the neutral
ministry of Coun t Taaffe who conciliated all parties
by a policy of parliamentary inactivity The Industria l
Revolution however was producing its effect and great
chan ges were taking place beneath the surface
(a ) The first symptom was a dramatic reversal in th e
clerical position The workers of the German -speaking
industr ial centres were beginning to ach ieve class
consciousness They were profoundly hostile to the
Liberal capitalism which had created and exploited
them an d were determined to gain a hearing for their
own point of view The Clericals saw their opportunity
Th eir old enemies and conquerors were being attacked
on the opposite flank : they did not remain passive
spectators but circled round th e Liberals rear from
Right to Left and joined forces with the new movement
In 1 882 the Catholi c group had detached itself from
the Conservative mass : during the next de cade it
began to be converted to Christian So cialism The
ideas of Joseph had triumphed by appealin g to the
middle cla ss the Church went one step further and
sought to re establish its hold over the people by
identifying itself with In dustrial Democracy In the
course of th e eighties the New Toryism achieved
striking successes Factory legislation was passed and
National Insurance introduced The clerical cu rrent
was confirmed in its new trend
(b ) Th e general rise in economic prosperity had
like wise af fected th e Austrian Slavs Education had
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1 879-9 3
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T H E V ITALI T Y OF AUS T RIA
1 32
This programme was not Utopian
The Tch ech s
and Poles h ad entered th e pale of European civilisation
earlier than any oth er branch of the Slavonic race
Prag and Cracow had played a promin ent part in history
before the foundation of Petersburg or Tobolsk More
over the emergence o f th e new Christian So cialist party
among the Young Tch ech s German fe llow citizens
o f fered hopes of racial recon ciliation Industrial ism
an d th e Cath olic Church both overrode the divisions of
nationality The German Liberals had failed to remove
the national problem unity might still be attained by
transcendin g it The P romised Land however was
still far off and the path was so beset by dangers t hat it
was doubtful whether Austria would reach her go al
(c) Christian So cialism was not the only new move
ment among the Austrian Germans The old Liberals
had fallen because they fail ed to move with the times
Th ey had lost control over the Industrial Revolution and
the Clericals had snatched from them th e initiative in
so cial politics ; but they had also mismanaged the
assimilation of the Slavs and the Young Tch ech s had
arisen in their despite Th is Slavonic renaissance
evoked a German party of a purely nationalistic
character
Aus trian
Pan germ an ism
had its root in the
German districts of Bohemia which were threatened
most immediately by the progress of the Tch ech s in
numbers and education The alli ance with th e Ger
man Empire in 1 879 gave the movement great impetus
In 1 880 an association called the
German School
1
was founded to f oster education in th e G er
Union
man language throughout Austria
Bismarck became
the party s hero and Prussian meth ods their ideal
D eu tsche S ch u l verein
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THE VITALI TY O F AUSTRIA
1 39
They wis h ed to direct all the resources of government
to the Germanisation of Slovenes and Tch ech s
This German chauvinism thwar ted the larger interests
”
of the German nationality The new German Left in
the Austrian Reichsrath was obsessed by th e n atio n alis
tic idea and spurned all the factors that were making for
progress and unity Had it triumphed the later con
cep tio n of a German confederation from Hamburg to
the Persian Gulf could never have taken shape for th e
Danubian Unit the central link in the chain would
have been shattered in pieces by German fanaticism
The crisis came four years after Count Taaff e s
resignation In 1 89 1 the Young Tch ech s had com
p letely ousted the old Bohemian Particularists and
th enceforward they were a power in the Reichsrath
By 1 897 they had become strong enough to impose
their will upon the government and ordinan ces were
promulgated which established Tch ech as an o fli cial
language side by side with German through all districts
of Bohe m ia
The result was a complete breakdown of constitutional
government The German nationalists made parlia
menta ry procedure impossible Obstruction developed
into a physical struggle between the parties for the
possession of the House The resignation of the
ministry and th e repeal of th e decrees eased the situa
tion at Vienna only to necessitate martial law in
Bohemia Both sides were intractable and since they
combined to prevent th e conduct of any business in
parliament 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
bitterness steadily grew to the exclusion of all other
political interests
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T HE V I TA L ITY OF A U STR IA
1 34
Such conditions could not las t for ever Austria was
rapidly losing all political m o ra le and unless the non
nationalistic forces in the country could rally th emselves
suffi ciently to make some great step forward nothing
could prevent the state from sinking through a p hase of
irresponsible government into utter disruption
The situation was saved by a fresh appeal to demo
cracy In 1 90 5 people began to discuss the introduction
of Manhood Suffrage in place of the old franchise of
the Pru ssian type
The proposal brought out the positive community of
interest between the Slavonic national groups an d the
German so cialists Both had everything to gain by an
electoral system based not on privilege either of class or
of race but upon the numeri cal proportion betw een th e
various sections of th e population and th ere was no
rivalr y between th em because their aims did not come
Within the same plane of politi cs
The Slavs were still
occupied by th e preliminary question of nationality the
German workers were devoted to social problems Th e
satisfaction of th e Slavonic nationalists could bring
German Labour nothing but gain National aspirations
would p ass out of th e realm of politics as soon as they
were realised an d their Slavonic devotees would be
liberated to recru i t th e non nationalistic ranks of So cial
1
Democracy and Christian So cialism
The proje cted Reform Bill produced a b en eficen t
During th e months
efiect even before it became law
wh en it was in debate a fres h current of political interest
swept through th e mass of th e population an d it did
not disappoint th e country s expectations when it was
fin ally promulgated towards the close of 1 90 6
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C om p are th e rel atio ns b etween th e Irish Natio n alists an d th e L ib er al
P arty in th e B ritish P ar li am en t
1
.
THE V I T A L I TY
136
O F A U S TRIA
If th e unity of th e Hapsburg complex is essential to
th e maintenance of its members position in the world
developments accomplished in one half of the Monarchy
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 Austrian people from
any intervention in Hungarian affairs There was only
one power in th e Empire to which an appeal from th e
Ausgleich could be made and that was the Hapsburg
Dynasty
The Ausgleich h ad never challenged the Dynasty s
supreme position Francis Joseph had witnessed many
transformations of his Empire before 1 866 and h e
remained th e living symbol of a tradition older and
more enduring th an th e settlement of th at year It was
to th e King Emperor s credit th at he accepted the Dual
System with whole hearted loyalty though the very
sinceri ty 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 nep h ew and his
heir held a very different opinion about th e Dyn asty s
mission in th e present For him Dualism was no state
of perfection but only a passing phase in the Monarchy s
long history He saw with a clear eye th at the Magyar
German compact was bound up with racial oppression
and that so long as it remained in force the Danubian
Unit went in danger of a devastating explosion of
nationalism What h e would have accomplis h ed had
h e ascended the th rone it is impossible to say People
are always apt to magnify possibilities that have been
denied th e ch ance of realisation yet th is much see m s
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THE VI TALITY O F A U STRIA
13 7
certain that h e contemplated th e abo lition of Dualism
and th e substitution of a Trialism in its place Th e
Slav was to be raised to an equali ty with the German
and th e Magyar and to receive his just share in th e
political control of a state whi ch depended upon him
so lar gely for its wealth and population
Had Francis Ferdinand lived to do his work h e migh t
have created an epoch in Hapsburg history even more
impo rtant th an that of the Ausgleich The forward
movement whi ch triumphed in Austria in 1 90 6 migh t
have conquered the remainder of th e Monarchy within
th e ne xt generation Such hopes were cut short by h is
assassination at Sarayevo in June 1 91 4 That crime
was the tragedy of Austria By plungin g her into a
European war it cancelled in a moment all th e con
stru ctive work of half a century and made th e wound
of nationalism break out again to bleed more violently
perhaps than it has ever done since 1 848
We have seen th at th is mo rtal disaster was due to
no causes latent in Austria herself
To understand
its an tecedents we must examin e contemporary events
in the oth er ha lf of th e Monarch y the
Crown of St
Stephen
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13 8
THE B AL KA N S
CHAPTER IV
RECON STRUCTI ON I N THE BALKA N S
IN Vienn a people like to say th at th e East begin s at
if we borrow th e ep igram with th e
th e River Leitha
mod ifica tion that the Ba lkan s begin there we s hall
bring Hungarian history into its true perspective
Vienna is not merely th e dividing point between two
e conomic worlds : it is also the point of tran sition
between opposite phenomena of racial distribution
West of the Leith a th e nationalities of Europe are
main ly grouped in compact blocks whi ch correspond
with considerable accuracy to the physical and e conomic
1
arti culation of th e continent
The national basis would
suggest itself naturally to th e observer as a prin ciple of
poli tical organisation and this quarter of the world was
in fact the cradle of the National State South East
of th e Lei tha however th e nationalities are interlaced
in ine xtricable confusion over an area th at e xt ends to
the Bla ck Sea and the lEgean and the international
congress which will follow th e war might well despair
in this region of coaxing sovereign national states out
of Geography not to speak of reconcilin g their structure
with the necessities of modern economic life
Th e
Th e problem must be faced nevertheless
pop u lations of South Eastern Europe are poss essed by
the idea of nationality to a morbid degree Intimate
conta ct has produced mutual exasperation instead of
understanding and good fellows h ip while th e d ifi cu lty
of devising any compromise that would deal impartial
Fo r a visu al p resen tatio n o f th is fact see M ap VII
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THE BALKANS
1 49
that we could not deal with any one of them in isolation
We wi ll th erefore include Hungary with the rest under
”
th e common deno m ination of a Balkan State and
we will approach her first because s h e holds the premier
place in the group both in geograp hical situation and
in degree of spiritual and material development We
s hall find t hat s h e displays all th e ch aracteristics of th e
Balkan type
A H unga ry
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The Kingdom of Hungary covers th e major part of
th e middle Danube basin From the junction of th e
March tributary as far as the Iron Gates the river
flows th rough Hungarian territory The Carpat hian
Range wh ich circles from the former point to the second
1
in a vast sweep towards the North and East constitutes
both th e watershed of the Danube system and the
frontier of the Hungarian state
Southwards alone
th e kingdom is bounded first by the Drave descending
from th e Eastern face of the Alps and then by th e
Danube itse lf from the point wh ere it unites with the
Drave an d adopts th e latter stream s Easterly course
The mountainous zone on the other S ide of thi s line
w hic h intervenes between the Danube basin and the
Adriati c has never been in corporated in Hungary
directly
The h eart of th e Hungari an land is the Alfold an
alluvial plain deposited in the hollow of a vanis h ed sea
In s h ape it is roughly an isosceles triangle with th e
South ern river boundary of the kin gdom as its base
2
and with its apex at th e V ereczka Pass the midmost
po int of the Carpath ian arc The Danube flows through
it from Buda Pest to its junction with the Drave and
S ee m ap o n p 1 0 5
Im m ediately East o f th e Uj o k Pass
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HUNGARY
1 41
it includes th e strip of country between the Danube
and the Theiss as well as a wide zone beyond th e Left
or Easter n bank of the latter river
This central plain was occupied by th e Magyars in th e
ninth century A D Bursting through the Carpathians
by the Vereczka Pass they entered the A lf Old at its apex
flooded it with th eir settlements and pressed still further
up th e Danube above Buda till th ey were checked as we
h ave seen by th e Austrian and Styrian Marks
Yet th e Magyars never made th e whole of Hungary
th eir own On either flank of the A lf Old there are
stretches of hill country included like itself with in th e
encircling wall of the Carpathians but sundered from
it by lesser mountain barriers In two comparatively
iso lated regions the earlier possessors of th e land
managed to maintain their existence under Magyar
dominion
North West of the Alfold a series of long winding
valleys descends from th e Carpathians and opens upon
the Danube be tween Pressburg and Buda Pest They
have remained in th e possession of the Slovaks a
Slavonic population hardly distinguishable in dialect
from th e Tch ech s of Moravia and Bo h emia on the oth er
S ide of the River March
East of the A lf Old lies the district called Transylvania
Be tween the V ereczka Pass and t h e Iron Gates the main
chain of the Carpathians makes an extremely salient
angle towards the East but a secondary branch of the
range takes the s hortest course from the one point to the
other and skirts the Eastern side of the A lf Old in a
1
North and South direction
A considerable extent of
In th e thirteen th cen tu ry this rid g e was cl o th ed in d ense fo rest an d
th e settl ers wh o p en etr ated i t fro m th e d irectio n o f th e Alf ld th erefo re
e t e n am e o f Transylv an ia to th e co u n try th ey reach ed o n th e o th er
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THE BA L KANS
42
tangl ed h ill and valley is caught within th is split in the
mountain line and is almost equally secluded by it
from th e more open country on all three sides
Th e passes which lead through the outer Carpath ian
wall North Eastward into the Moldavian steppe and
Southward into the plain of Wallachia carry as many
lines of railway as th ose which pierce the interior wall
The
an d debouc h upon th e levels of t h e Alfold
provin ce is rich in rivers but th e water system hardly
facilitates communication with th e outer world Th e
countless streams have to concentrate th eir forces in
thr ee main channels before th ey can succeed in breaking
throug h th e mountain barriers and even then th ey
content themselves with precipitous gorges barely
wide enough for th e current itself Two of th ese
1
channels however fin d their way to th e A lf Old and
2
only one to th e Wallac hian plain so that to that e xtent
Transylvania may be reckoned to have closer geo
grap hical links with Hungary than with Roum ania
When the Magyars appeared in the Alfold this
sheltered province was already occupied by the Roumans
a pop u lation of Latin speech ?
Th e Kingdom of Hu ngary was thus heterogeneo u s
in nationality from the beginn ing and as her h istory
developed the confusion increased
After th e conversion of the Magyars in the eleventh
century A D German colonies were introduced to
civilise the country They opened up the min eral
resources of th e Slovak hills and established themselves
Th e A lt ( Al u ta)
Th e M aros an d th e S zam o s
Pro b ably th ey are d escen d ed fro m th e L atinised in hab i tan ts o f
Ill yricu m th e sectio n o f th e Ro m an Em pire between th e Alps th e
Drave an d th e Ad riatic Wh en S lav o m c im m igr an ts fro m th e North
descen d ed u po n th e Adriatic co ast in th e seven th cen tu ry A D (see
b elo w) th ey wo u ld have been likely to press th e native pro vin cials
E astward acro ss th e D an u b e
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THE B A LKA N S
1 44
th e line of the Save and the Iron Gates an d th e P eace
of Belgrade in 1 73 9 delimited a frontier between the
Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires whi ch resigned the
1
whole of Hungary to the latter
Yet the ejected Turk
had not failed to set his mark upo n the land and the
victors found the Alfold a deser t
In the middle of the eighteenth cen tury the Hapsburg
Monarchy was entering th e Strong Government
ph ase and the newly acquired territories o ffered a
magnificent field of experim ent for the ideas of
”
Enlightened Autocracy
The country was rich in natural resources it lay
waste through want of popula tion to develop them and
the Government met the need by schemes of colonisation
and town building on an e xtensive scale The re con
struction of Hungary was the most stri king success of
Maria Theresa s and Joseph s po licy During their
reigns the material traces of th e Tur k s presence were
ob literated and before th e end of th e century the
Kingdom once more approached th e standard of
Central Europe in acute contrast to the territories still
blighted by Turkish misgovernment immediately beyond
her frontier Yet in restorin g Hungary s material pro
sperity her n ew ru lers immeasurably aggravated the
impend ing problem of nationality
Before the Turkish conquest the Alfold had been the
stronghold of the Magyar race and the Magyars had
therefore suffered more severely than an y oth er elemen t
in the country by the devastation of the Turkish wars
The remnant of the nation that survived on the plain
and th e fragment of it that lay West of Buda along the
This fro n tier rem ain ed u naltered u n til th e o ccu p atio n o f Bo snia
Herzego vin a in 1 878 Th e o n ly ch an g e in th e in terval was th e ann exa
tio n to A us tria o f th e D alm atian co ast p ro vin ce fo rm er ly a Ven etian
po ssessio n at th e settl em en t o f 1 8 1 4
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HUNGARY
Austrian and Styrian border might perhaps have made
good th e losses by th eir own gradual increase under the
regime of peace and security that had descended upon
them at last The process however would have
been extremely slow and the autocracy was neith er
patient nor far sighted while it would h ave ignored th e
factor of nationality on principle even had it realised
its bearing on th e situation
Th e Government therefore re peopled th e Alfold
by the indiscriminate introduction of settlers from all
th e surroundin g races Roum ans from Tran sylvan ia
were allowed to encroach upon th e plain till they had
advanced half the distance between their mountains
and th e Theiss Serb refugees from Ottoman territory
were encouraged to settle on the Northern bank of the
Danube Enclaves of German colonists from Swabia
were distributed all over the land to leaven th e other
elements with Western civilisation By the time the
work was finis h ed Hungary had been reduced to such a
racial medley th at the Magyars no longer constituted
1
more th an a bare majority of the population
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A n an a sis o f th e census ta en in 1 900 f o r th e Kin g
e
x
c
us
i
e
f
C
r
a
t
i
a
S a o nia) is th e est co m m en tar
o
o
(
1
l v
ly
lv
N a tiona lities
Magyars
“
artisa
n
To tal p o p u latio n
k
b
N u m b ers
do m o f Hu n gary
y o n th e resu lt
Percen tages
1 46
THE BALKANS
Had histori cal continuity been broken as completely
in Hun gary as in other Balkan l an ds this confusion of
tongues might have proved harmless
Joseph s political
genius might have steered the country i nto the wake
of the Swiss Confederation an d initiated it into th e
European fraternity as a non national state The
Turkis h rule in Hungary however had been short
and it had never extended to the whole kin gdom Th e
Slovak country in the North Pressburg on the Danube
and a strip of territory between th e Danube and the
Drave along the Styrian boundary had all escaped
conquest by electing the Hapsburg as their king and
sheltering themselves beneath his strong arm In the
opposite quarter Transylvania had been saved by a
vigorous lin e of princes who secured the autonomy of
th e provin ce under th e suzerainty of th e Turkish Empire
In a very considerable portion of the country the
medi e val tradition th us maintained itself unbroken
and when the unconquered North Western border the
Turkish pashalik and the Transylvanian principality
were united once more th e forces derived from the past
were strong enough to ch allenge the Hapsburgs s ch emes
for th e future
We have seen that the Hungarian Estates took
the lead in th e struggle between Centralisation and
Parti cularism whi ch convulsed th e Whole Hapsbur g
Monarchy from 1 780 to 1 849 They were able to do
so because medie val Hungary had developed h er
parliamentary institutions more strongly th an any oth er
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 everybod y who was not a serf Many were
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THE B A L KANS
1 48
new found liberties of th eir common country but
required the recognition of the Serb language as the
o fficial medium in Serb lo calities
The Magyar
m inistry refused to consider their claim
Magyar
they declared must be the only language of administra
tion in th e whole kin gdom of Hungary and when th e
Serb leaders refused their allegiance on such terms as
th ese Kossuth rep lied that
th en th e sword must
”
de cide be tween them
The ruin of the Magyars hopes in th e following year
was largely due to the dread with whi ch the rest of th e
Hu ngarians looked forward to their success All other
nationalities in th e kin gdom sympathised with the
Hapsburg cause and the Serbs at least fought valiantly
on its behalf When the events of 1 866 enabled the
Magyars to snatch victory out of defeat the f o reb o d
ings of their alien fellow citizens were more than realised
To the remaining inhabitants of the Hapsburg Mon
archy th e Ausgleich brought some measure of relief
from the intolerable regime of the fif ties : for th e
subject populations of Hungary it opened the gloomiest
page of a precarious history
The Compromise with the Germans of Austria and
th e Hapsburg Dynasty delivered Hungary into the h and
of the Magyar Liberal Party If the Liberals of Austria
correspond to the English Radicals of 1 83 2 we can
only liken their Ma gyar namesakes to the men of 1 688
The
Glorious Revolution
was heralded with a
flouris h of trumpets and the tale has been continually
enhanced by conventional eloquence yet in Hungary
as in England the era of free institutions merely
established th e ascendancy of a close oligarchy
Th e Hungarian magnates who in 1 86 7 emerged
victorious from nearly a centu ry of political warfare
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HU N GARY
1 49
reproduced both th e virtues and th e vices of th e Englis h
1
Whigs
Th ey treasured an ingrained tr adition of
statesmanship that has been valuable to the backward
majori ty of their countrymen and experience had made
them convinced haters of certain pernicious political
ideals ; 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
Th e Liberalism of the Magyar Wh igs was more
than a veneer In questions of re ligion for instance
2
Hungary remained true to her traditions of toleration
But th ey were fanatical nationalists and the whole
political energy of the party rapidly became absorbed in
a campaign of M agyarisatio n
Magyar chauvinism has been of a di fferent stamp
from th e policy of any German party in Austria The
Austrian German s have always been content to dominate
their fellow nationalities The Magyars however were
less civilised than the Germans and th ey bore a much
larger proportion to the total population of their
Th e conservatio n o f th e Whig fam ilies d ep en ded o n th e system
”
of
En tail which h ad d evelo ped in th e seven teen th cen tu ry In
Hu n gary th e co nso lid ation o f lan d ed estates was st ll m o re drastically
pro m o ted by a law fo rbiddin g an y n o ble to alien ate h is lan d This
m
u re was in tro d u ced b y L o u is I in 1 3 5 1 an d rem ain ed in fo rce till
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Hu n gary is divided between m an y creeds Th e Ro m an Chu rch
draws its ad heren ts fro m three o f th e races—Magyars Germ ans an d
S lo va ks—an d acco u n ted in 1 900 f o r n ear ly 49 % o f th e p o pu latio n
Calvinism th e ext stro gest sect
is co nfin ed to th e M gyars
A ll th e S erb s an d a m aj o rity o f th e Ro m ans are o rtho do x
wh il e
th e rem a in d er o f th e R o u m ans an d all th e Ru th en es are Uniats
o b servin g th e O rth o d o x ritu al b t o wn in g all egia ce to th e P o p e
Lu theranism
is co m m o n to S lo vaks an d Germ a
Th e a o f Tu rkish ru l e in Hu n gary w
co t m p o ary with th e
Cath l c reactio n Whi l th e Hap b gs we e savag ly rep essin g
P ro testa tism in th e te ito ies n d er th eir co n tro l th e Tu rks exten d ed
th eir to leratio n to all C h ristian sects in th e Alf o ld an d th e Magyar
Calvin ists in evo lt against th e tyran n y o f Vien n a o ften m ad e co m m o n
cau se with th e Mo sl em acro ss th e b o rd er
In th e au to n o m o u s p rin ci
pali ty o f Transylvan ia Pro testan tism was th e o f fi cial religio n
2
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THE BALKANS
1 50
coun try Th ey aimed at nothin g less th an the e xtirpa
tion of other languages and cu ltures and th e ultimate
conversion to th eir own nationality of every inhabitant
of th e Hungarian Kingdom
The meth ods for obtaining this result which were
inaugurated by the Magyar Liberals after 1 86 7 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 Englis h parallel we must hark
back once more to the Whigs of 1 688 and call to min d
the repression of the Catholics by the British administra
tion in Ireland during the black era th at followed the
Battle of th e Boyne
The Magyars like the Russians O ttoman Turks an d
oth er peoples on th e outskir ts of European civilisation
are ostentatious of th eoretical enlightenment but th eir
borrowed idealism serves to cloak the survival of
realities which have ceased to be possible further West
By the new constitution all citizens of Hungary were
declared equal before the law with out distin ction of
race and were expressly guaranteed th e enjoyment of
their national individuality Yet the same constitution
recogn ises Magyar as the only lan guage of state and
the other tongues have been jealously excluded from
o fi cial use
T h is ord inance is perpetually in evidence In
purely Slovak or Rouman towns the names of the stree ts
are posted up in Ma gyar and the name of the pla ce its elf
is M agyarised in o fficial parlance On the state rail ways
th e Magyar language has a monopoly : time tables
notices and even the tickets are printed in Ma gyar
alone and Magyar is th e admin istrative lan guage of th e
railway sta ff The same thing applies to all oth er
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THE BALKANS
1 52
service The state itself must suff er by forfeiting the
assistance of some of its most capable citizens
Ag ain th e 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 e fficiency and even
if no l anguage ordinances had been passed the Magyars
would have found the m selves in control of the Hungarian
state
This also is true In 1 86 7 the Magyars were ahead
of the rest in education and they have li kewise main
tain ed their lead in the meanwhile
Yet the history of
education in Hungary during this period should put
the Magyar apologist to silence
The M agyars have ensured their superiority by
paralysin g their neighbours progress rather than by
progressin g themselves If the subject nationalities
are more and not less illiterate now than they were fifty
years ago it is because the Magyar government h as
closed practically all their secondary and the great
majority of their primary schools and has made it
in creasingly hard to obtain instruction in any but th e
Magyar tongue The Magyars politi cal monopoly
was originally justified by culture but they have
perverted politi cs to the monopo lisation of culture
itself by grotesquely uncultured means Under these
circums tances the relative degree of education attained
at present by the Magyars and their fellow citizens loses
all significance as a standard of political value
Hungary however is at least a constitutional country
Why then have the min or nationalities failed to redress
5
their wrongs by constitutional pressure
They amount
to littl e less th an half the population Surely they
could retu rn such a formidable contin gent of representa
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H UN GARY
1 53
ives to the parliament at B uda-P est that Magyar
f
ministries would be driven to a compromise
This door is closed because the government of
Hungary is not constitutional in th e modern sense : it
is only called so by courtesy The country still awai ts
"
its Great Reform Bill and the medi aeval franch ise
which Great Bri tai n sloughed o ff in 1 83 2 has here
endured till th e present day We have said that the
Magyar politicians of 1 86 7 were Whigs
we shall
discover their rotten boroughs in the non Magyar
constituencies They were as well versed in corruption
as English politicians were in the eigh teenth 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 would have been called
massacre if it had occurred in Turkey
No redress therefore is possible through parliament
because the leaders of the non Ma gyar nationalities
can never obtain a seat there They are rigidly debarred
from a political career and even in the neutral sp h ere
of literature art h istory and all that is included under
the name of culture th ey are made to suffer for the
privilege of leaders h ip
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
citizen of Hungary immediately suspect to his coun try s
police Personal liberty in Hungary suf fers direly from
the want of a Habeas Corpus Act The laws of con
sp iracy are
so compre h ensive that arrest Without
specification of the c h arge and protracted imprisonment
before trial are events of normal occurrence Wh en
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THE BALKANS
1 54
it is remembered th at in virtue of th e la nguage ordin
all proceedings in court have to be conducted
an ces
exclusively in the Magyar language the picture of racial
oppression is complete
This atrocious system w as eleb o rated by the Liberal
Party which came into power in 1 86 7
The Liberal regime was protracted
De ak the
statesman of the Ausgleich was succeeded in 1 876
by Count Co lo m an Tisza the Magyar Wal pole who
remained uninterruptedly in o ffice until 1 890 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 th ose ecclesias tical i ssues which Austria
had settled as early as 1 868 In 1 90 2 the Liberals
were first challenged on their real s tanding gro u nd
th e maintenance of the Ausgleich
A radical movement had been gaining strength which
aspired to pass beyond compromise to independence
“
The ideal of the _Left w as self su fficien cy They
wished to see Hungary take her place as a sovereign
unit on an entire equali ty wi th the other states of
Europe
In our analysis of the Danubian Monarchy we have
noted that great economi c difficul ties s tood and always
will stand in the way of such a development The
only chance of overcoming them would be th e en th u si
astic co -operation for this end of the whole Hungarian
people The first object therefore of the Magyar
Left should have been th e conciliation of the non
Magyar nationalities They should have driven their
Liberal opponents from o ffice on this issue justified
th eir own installation by a complete reversal of the
prevailing chauvinism and a definitive solution of the
racial problem on democratic lines an d then joined
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THE BALKANS
56
th ey surrendered at dis cr etion as soon as it became
certain that a bill of identical purport was on th e verge
of passing into law in the Austrian half of the Monarchy
At the beginning of 1 90 6 a Coalition min is try w hich
had renounced the Magyar word of command was
at last called into o ffi ce but their quiver had been
emptied of its arrows
Towards the end of 1 90 8 th ey introduced a carefully
planned reform bill whic h would have advanced th e
Hungarian franchise from th e medi aeval to the Prussian
level The elec torate was to be increased very con
sid erab ly in numbers the qualification for su f frage was
to be literacy the electors were to be classified according
to degrees of education and the more highly qualified
were to possess more than one vote Political power
was thus represented as th e privilege of culture but
since the dominan t Ma gyars 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
th eir perfunctory efforts towards internal reform before
the franchise bill had tim e to pass into law Its mere
formulation proved once and for all that the subject
nationalities had no thing to expect from Magyar
1
Radicalism an d in the trial of strength with Austria
and the Crown to which the Coalition now committed
itself Francis Joseph was still able to wield his m aster
weapon
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Altho u gh o n e o f th e co m p o n en ts o f th e Co alitio n was th e Peo ple s
g ro u p w hich h ad taken th e cause o f th e n atio n al t es
in to its p ro g ram m e
’
1
i i
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HUNGARY
1 57
Early in 1 90 9 th e more e xtreme elements of the
Left forced th e Coalition premier Dr Wekerle to
open the campaign for economic autonomy with th e
demand for a separate Hungarian state bank Th e
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
T his shrewdly aimed blow broke up th e Coalition
into fragments The moderates and the intransigeants
were each strong enough to stalemate the other no
ministry could be formed and in 1 90 9 as in 1 90 5
parliamentary government was suspended At the
beginning of 1 9 1 0 Francis Joseph appointed a ministry
of king s friends
under the leadership of Count
Khuen Hed erv ary a notorious po litical boss who
had thoroughly learnt his trade during a twenty years
1
tenure of the Croatian vice royalty
Th e Hed erv ary
cabal scattered promises broadcast to all aggrieved
elements in the country and the elections conducted
under its auspices next summer surpassed even Hun
garian precedent in their corruption When the new
parliament met the Count had a docile majori ty at his
beck and th e Magyars saw their constitutional tradition
reduced to a farce
The lesson sank deep Khuen H ed erv ary was too
shady a character 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 o ffice at
the present moment and his restoration means that the
evolution of Magyar politics has come to a dead stop
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THE BAL KANS
1 58
He stands for a reaction to the programme of 1 86 7
compro mise with Austria and th e Dynasty war to the
knif e again st th e non Magyar nationalities in Hungary
itself The Magyars have realised that d em o cratisa
tion and Magyarisatio n are in compatible and they have
preferred to sacrifice progress to ch auvinism
Thus Hungary and Austria have diverged profoundly
in their po liti cal history since th e year of the Ausgleich
In 1 86 7 Hu ngary possessed the more enlig h tened
tradition of the two and the initiative towards co n stitu
Then
tio n al government came from the Magyar side
for a time they marched abreast but when the problem
of nationali ty emerged like a steep cliff athwart their
path Austria pressed forward and after a hazardous
s truggle attain ed the summit : Hungary halted and
with out even s cannin g th e cliff s face for a handhold
turned about and began to retrace her steps
Between 1 86 7 and 1 9 1 4 the politi cal standard of th e
Magyar nation has griev io u sly deteriorated
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The results of our survey warrant the assumption
that if the two Central European monarchi es suff er
defeat in the present war th e subject nationali ties of
Hun gary when th e plebis cite at last e n ables them to
express their desire will act like the Polish subjects of
Germany and vo te to the last man for liberation from
th e Magyar state We have to examine whether their
secession from Hungary will involve the disruption of
the Danubian Empire
Ju st as in the case of Poland their e xtrication wi ll
necessarily be incomplete
Geography has made
Hun gary a natural unit sundered from her neighbours
and knit togeth er within herself by pro m inent p h ysical
b arriers and within this area th e races are e xtraordinarily
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1 60
THE BALKANS
From the senti mental po m t of view we need
have little scruple in wounding 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 1 849 ; 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 altogeth er escape the
hypocrite s retribution
In the interests of common justice therefore Europe
must guarantee the alien enclaves in Magyar territory
Yet a guaranteed t e organisation of the Hungarian state
on s till more drasti c lines might well be in the best
interests of the Magyars themselves for it would be
th eir one chance of inducin g the much larger blocks of
alien population whi ch are not debarred from secession
by geography to hold fast of th eir o wn free will to their
present allegiance
Th e prin cipal 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 th e medi aeval counties
which are very unequal in size an d entirel y out of
relation to racial boundaries These county divisions
should be recast into n ew local units standardised
approximately in area and population like the French
depar tments and each department should be made
racia lly 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 lan guage
as its o fficial medium of administration and should
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161
HU N GARY
be the basis of electoral organisation for the central
Hu ngarian parliament
(ii ) There should be no parliamentary devolution to
national blocks The races are so interlaced that it
would be impossible to carve out areas including all the
Rouman or all the German inhabitants of Hungary
and endow them with extensive Home Rule
The
various national territories are too scattered for effective
organisation as unities
(iii ) On the other hand national education and all
public activities that contribute to national culture
s hould be placed under the exclusive control of national
committees consisting of the deputies elected to the
central Hungarian parliament by the various depart
ments belonging to each particular nationality Th ese
committees should share between them the annual
budget voted for public education by the parliament as
a whole in proportion to the percentage of th e total
population which they respectively represent
(iv ) All questions of universal interest such as
communications and defence social an d economic
development fiscal relations with other countries
consular service and foreign policy in general should
remain as heretofore within th e provin ce of the central
1
parliament now to be elected on the new departmental
basis
If the non Magyar nationalities of Hungary were
assured some such refor m s as these it is conceivable
th at geographical and economic considerations would
prevail with them over hatred of the Magyars and desire
for incorporation in their own national states ; but
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presu m ably su bj ect to th e co d iti ns o f th e A sg leich
u n l ess o th er Circu m stan ces l ead th e H u n g ari an p ar liam en t to term in ate
th e co nn ectio n with A u stria
A n d th ere o re
n
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1 62
THE B ALKANS
prediction is impossible an d we must reckon with th e
contingency that certain elements may in any event
1
secede
Will the cohesion of th e whole Hapsburg
Monarchy be endangered by th eir secession f
The German colonies in th e A lf d ld and in the Slovak
2
hills are too widely dispersed for extrication and the
Slovaks thems elves do not come in to question from our
immediate stan dpoint They may be eager to secede
from Hungary but they would only do so in order to
coalesce with the Tch ech s of Austria Th ey have no
blood breth ren outside th e frontiers of th e Danubian
Empire and th e satisfaction of th eir national aspirations
would affect the internal organisation of th e whole unit
rather th an its so lidari ty towards the outer world We
are left with the Ruthenes Roumans and Serbs
(i ) The Roumans are the strongest non Magyar
nationa lity in Hungary and we have seen that they are
concentrated in Transylvan ia and the adjoining strip
of the A lf d ld towards the border of th e national
3
Roumanian Kin gdom
Their transference t h erefore
from Hungary to Roumania would seem a natural
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p te o f M agyar t o n th e S lo v aks Ru then es an d Ro u m ans
ha ve stea d il y b een d isen gagin g th em s lves sin ce 86 7 f o m th e Magy
to ls
Th e g ro wth o f a na tiv e in tellegenz ia h as h eighten ed th eir
ti n a l co ns cio u sn ess a d
rece t years th e cu rr en t o f em ig rati n
P easan ts wh o
to th
U S A h as b ro u ght w ea lth in to th eir d ist icts
h ave m a de th eir little p i l e in Am erica h ave b een b u yin g o t th e b ig
e ta tes o f th e Whig m agn ates an d th ereb y freein g th eir so il fro m th e
ali n m as ter s p resen ce
Th o u gh th e Germ an s o f Hu gary wo u ld escap e fro m th e Magyars
if th ey co ld f o r th e A us g l eich h as secu ed th em n o b etter treatm en t
Wh il e th e Magya h av e b e n in allian c
th an th e o th er na ti o n a l ties
M agyarise
Wi th th e Germ an s o f A u stria th ey h av e n o t h sita ted to
Fo r th e distrib u tio n o f th e
th e two m illio n G erm an s in th eir m idst
l atter see M ap III
Th e free Ro u m ans o f th e p resen t kin g do m are p ro b ably d escen d ed
f o m Transylvanian settlers wh o du rin g th e early Middle A ges pu shed
th e o p
t th ro u gh th e C arp ath ian s a d es tabl ish ed th em selv e i
S tepp es
1
In
s
is a i
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r
na
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ar
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THE BALKANS
1 64
present crisis If Roumania intervenes in the war in
favour of the Allies the prize will fall into h er grasp :
if she remains neutral till hostilities cease her claim s
will not ob tain preference in the subsequent settlement
(ii ) The Serb settlements in th e A lf d ld are conter
minous with those of th e Roumans They skirt the
North ern bank of the Danube from a point opposite th e
jun ction of the Morava tributary as far upstream as
th e junction of th e Drave but they are bewilderingly
entangled with Germ an and Magyar enclaves The
"
majority of them lie wi thin th e B anat of Temesvar
a square field delimi ted in the South Eastern corner
of the Alfold by th e Transylvanian mountains on th e
East and th e Maros Theiss and Danube rivers on the
other three sides
Th e Banat was one of the prin cipal th eatres of
eigh teenth century colon isation : 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 detach ed from
Hungary the annexation of the remainder to Serbia
would be a logical corollary
The courses of the
Th eiss and th e Maros offer a good frontier in thi s
quarter for the Magyar state and the Serbian national
kingdom South of the Dan ube will be anxious to incor
irredenta on the river s further shore
po rate its
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 from
Hu ngary its fate will be decisive for the Serb districts
This wo u ld in vo lve th e transf er en ce o f th e Germ an en clav es in th e
B an at as well ; b u t th ey are d oo m ed in an y case to b e m erg ed in a
state o f alien n atio n ality an d an y al tern ativ e w o u ld b e a rel ef fro m
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M agyarisatio n
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1 65
HUNGARY
as well They are no more than a wedge driven in
be tween the Magyar and Rouman populations of th e
1
Alfold and could not be excluded from the Hungarian
frontier if the country on both sides of them remained
within it
(iii ) The Ruthenes occupy the opposite corner of the
They
A lf iild round the head waters of the Theiss
number less than half a million and are divided from
their Magyar neighbours by no natural boundary while
the other twenty fiv e millions who speak the same
2
dialect live on the further side of the Carpathians
The geographical factor therefore strongly favours th e
existing pol i tical situation yet the force of national
antipathy and sympathy is more imperious still and
th e 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 the routes is the famous Vereczka Pass which gave
entrance into th e 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
wi th the vast body of their race wh ich stretch es unin
terru p ted ly Eas tward from the Carpathians
further
slopes to the upper waters of the Don
These then are the three instances in which Hungary
is liable to suffer territorial loss Our discussion has
3
yielded no certain conclusions but it h as sufficed to
show that secession in these quarters will not jeopardise
the continued existence of the Hapsburg Empire Even
S ee M ap III
S ee C h VIII C
R ectifica tio n s o f th e Hu n g arian fro n tier are in d eed so p ro b l em atical
that we h ave n o t attem p ted to in d i cate p o ss b iliti es in th e m aps attach ed
to this b oo k
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THE BALKANS
1 66
if all possibilities were actualised , th e Magyar Kin gdom
would still be left with nearly twelve million inhabitants
in occupation of a compact and productive territory
The balance between Austria and Hu ngary would of
course be destroyed but th e break-down of th e Dual
System migh t strength en the inward cohesion of the
Monarchy by opening th e way for a federal re co n stru c
tion of the whole on genuinely national lines Even
if the losses in Galicia an d Hungary were serious enough
to degr ade th e Dan ubian unit from the ran ks of the
Great Powers it might survive as an essential member
in the re organised fraternity of European nations
We have now e xamined the state of th e national
problem in the Kingdom of Hungary as well as in the
Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Reichsrath
”
at Vienna without discoverin g any ulcer fatal to the
lif e of th e Hapsburg organism ; but our examination
of the Trans L eith an ian half of the Monarchy is not
yet complete In addition to the Hungarian realm
the Crown of St Stephen comprises the Kingdom
of Croatia Slavonia beyond the South ern bank of the
Drave
Th is Hungarian dependency has impli cated the
Hapsburg Monarchy in the national problem of th e
So uthern Slavs
Po p u latio n o f Hu n g ary within p resen t
fro n ti ers (acco rdin g to census o f 1 900)
P ossi bl e losses after th e p resen t war calcu
lated at a m axim u m
(a ) Ro u m ans S z ekels an d S axo ns
( b ) S erbs
( c) G erm an en cl av es am o n g S erb s
app ro xim a tely
(d) R u th en es
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To tal o f po ssibl e lo sses
Mi nim u m rem ain der
1
1 68
THE BALKANS
Th e system of the Morava and the Save and in fact
th e whole region between the Drave th e Iron Gates
and th e sea was occupied in the seventh century A D
by a swarm of the great Slavoni c host whi ch found its
way through the Moravian Gap and the Marchfeld and
drifted down upon the Adriati c coast
T hi s flying column of the Slavonic invasion did not
remain u ndi ff erentiated withi n itself
Its rearguard
tarried under the lea of the Alps and is represented
by the modern Slovenes Its vanguard crossed the
watershed of the Middle Danube spread out fanwise
towards th e ZEgean and the Black Sea and has developed
Both these detached
into the Bulgarian nationality
groups have evolved racial and diale ctical characteristics
which distinguish them sharply from the main body
1
which lies between
W e will leave them aside for the
moment and concentrate our attention upon the latter
”
for whom we will reserve the title of Southern Slavs
T he Southern Slavs in this specialised sense of
the name speak an absolutely homogeneous dialect
and occupy a compact geograp hi cal area extending
from Agram ( Zagreb ) to Uskub ( S ko plye) and from
Belgrade to Salona T hey have thus become immediate
neighbours of the Magyars who two centuries later
descended upon the country on the further bank of the
Danube and the Drave and at the present time the two
2
races are approximately equal in numerical strength
but in every other respect their history has been
str ikingly different
The rich unbroken levels of the Alfold offer a natural
cradle for a strong unified national state the Southern
Th e B l g ars d erive their n am e b u t n o thin g el se fro m a n on
S l avo n c caste o f n o m a d con q u ero rs o ff th e stepp es
E th er l an gu age is n o w spo k en by b etween eigh t an d nin e m i ll io ns
o f p eo pl e
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THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
1
69
Slavs on the other hand have been grievously handi
capped by their p hysical environment The gaunt
ribs o i the Dinaric Alps wh ich shoulder th e Danube
system away from the Adriatic are not kindly to Ma n
Th e rock-surface cropping out through the scan ty soil
sets a rigid limit to the growt h of population while the
scanty communities that maintain their existence are
isolated from one another by the parallel ranges of
mountains and the rushing rivers which carve their
way amon g them Even the Adriatic coast line which
rivals 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 T he rivers invariably flow inland
and only one the Narenta drains South Westward to
the sea
Such a lan d could never have become an independent
focus of human life Its physical function as a link
between the mountain masses of Central and South
Eastern Europe has conditioned the history of its in
habita nts and doomed them to be the victims and t he
spoil in the warfare of alien worlds
The country of the South ern Slavs has been debat
able g round from the beginning Christianity pene
trated
it simultaneously from opposite directions
The Croats in th e North West were converted from the
Catholic centres of Aquileia and Salzburg O rthodox
missionaries from Byzantium mounted the valley of the
Vardar and secured the alle gian ce of th e Serbs in the
l
Morava b asin
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Croat an d S erb were i n o rigin two kin dred tribes iden tical with th e
C hro bat an d S o rab wh o rem ain ed No rth o f th e Carpathian s Th e
nam es h av e g rad ually been
ad ap ted to d en o te all S o u th S l avo n ic
p eakers wh o b elo n g respectively to th e Catho lic an d th e Ortho d x
C hu rch irrespective o f po litical gro u pin g o r lo cal habitat
1
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THE B A L KANS
1 70
Th e in dependent career of both th ese tribes was
brief Th e Croati an prin cipality flourished in the
eleventh century but in 1 1 02 it was an nexed to the
e xpanding realm of th e Magyars and for the next three
centuries Hungary and Veni ce fought for the sovereignty
of the land till the dispute was settled by a compromise
About 1 420 Venice finally establis h ed her rule along
the Dalmatian littoral while Hungary retained her
suzerainty over the hin terla nd
The fortunes of Serbia were grander In 1 1 59 the
House of N em an ya came to the front an d steadily built
up a national state which attained its zenith in the
fourteenth century Stephen Dushan Tsar of the
Serbs from 1 33 6 to 1 3 56 A D ruled from th e Danube
to the 1B gean and threatened to besiege Con stantin ople
itself but disaster followed close upon his triumphs
Th e year before Stephen s death the Ottoman Turks
had occupied Gallipoli on the European shore of the
1
Dardanelles thirty years later they fought the Serbs
2
in th e heart of their country on the field of Kossovo
an d their crushing vi ctory made an end of Serbian
in dependen ce
The advance of the Turks aggravated the dis u nion of
the Southern Slavs by introd ucing another creed In
the twelfth century the Pauli cian heresy from Armenia
3
had obtained a footing in the region and th e nobility
of Bosnia a Hungarian dependen cy on the banks of
th e Bosna River embraced it as th eir national faith
Th eir ch oice isolated them from their neighbours and
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1 3 86 .
Kosso vo Po lye=
Field o f B la ckb ir ds
3
It was b ro u ght by Arm eni an su b j ects o f th e Eas t Ro m an E m p ire
who m th e Byzan tin e go vernm en t h ad fail ed to co n vert to O rth o d o xy
an d h ad p u nish ed f o r th eir co n tu m a cy by exi lin g th em to th e o ppo si te
bo rd er o f th e Im p erial territo ry Th e S lavo ni c co n verts th ey m a de in
th eo p h i lo i
th eir n ew h o m e to o k th e titl e o f B o gu m i ls
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THE BALKANS
1 72
example From 1 5 2 7 to the pre sent day the Dynasty
has ruled this section of the South- Slavonic world by
hereditary right
The battles betw een Austrian and T urk were de cided
on the b anks of the D anube but the Dinaric mountain
zo ne was the scene of fierce and co ntinuous subsidiary
warfare Durin g two cent u ries of inconclusive strife
th e Turkish cavalry sometimes penetrated right up the
Save and ravaged the Venetian pl ains at the head of
1
the Adriati c while for nearly twen ty years the Haps
b u rg standard was p lanted in Belgrade and the Austrian
frontier pushed far up the valley of the Morava
Neither power however proved strong enou gh to
wrest from the other the und isputed dominion of
the whole South Slavonic region and the Treaty of
Belgrade in 1 73 9 terminated the struggle by a partition
The whole of Croatia and Slavonia fell to the Haps
burg : the Ottoman retained Serbia and Bosnia The
2
new frontier started from the Iron Gates and followed
the course of the Danube upwards as far as the j unction
of th e Save Belgrade in the South Eastern angle
between the two rivers remained a Turkish fortress
and th e Hapsburg frontier proceeded along the Save s
Northern bank till it reached the point where the latter
river is joined by the Una Thence it turned Sout h
W estward first conformin g to the Una s windin gs and
then taking an irregular course of its own across the
mountains till it struck the coast opposite the island
of Pago
T his made the Hapsburg Empire immediately
conterminous with the provin ce of Dalmatia which
the Venetians had managed to defend against O ttoman
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y o f K arlo witz in 1 7 1 8
Fo llo wm g u po n th e Treat
S ee M ap
III
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THE S O UTHERN SLAVS
1 73
aggression ever since it fin ally passed into their hands
in the fif teent h century Napoleon made an end of
the Venetian Republic and cast her territories into the
meltin g pot In the general re settlement of 1 8 1 4
Dalmatia an d Ragusa were defin itively incorporated
in the Hapsb urg dominions and the whole Eastern
littoral of the Adriatic from Trieste to th e fjord of
Cattaro thus came to be united under the same Austrian
government With this exception however t h e terri
to rial arrangements of 1 73 9 still remained in force
when the events of 1 86 6 forced the Danubian Monarchy
i nto the most recent phase of its history
In the year of the Ausgleich the Monarchy s position
with regard to the Southern Slavs almost e xactly
reproduced its relation towards the Italian nation
after th e settlement of 1 8 1 4 In both cases one section
of a nationality was in cluded within the Hapsburg
frontier while th e remainder lay beyond it an d th e
Monarch y s Italian experience had proved th at
such a situation was essentially unstable
A divided
nationality was bo u nd to attain unity in time It might
achieve it within the compass of the greater Empire if
t h e latter succeeded in advancing its frontier to include
t h e whole race but the frontier could not remain
stationary If it failed to advance it must retire and
national unity 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 Monarch y 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
history the South Slavonic region off ered the necessary
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THE BALKANS
1 74
avenue for expansion Excluded from G ermany and
Italy Austria Hungary must grow Eastward or else
resign herself to paralysis diminishment and final
dissolution
Since 1 86 7 therefore the attention of the Joint
Ministry for Foreign Affairs has become increasingly
concentrated upon th e South Slavoni c problem The
Monarch y has never been faced by a graver issue but
on the other h and it has seldom enjoyed conditions so
favourable for a successful solution
The South Slavoni c population within th e frontier
included Orthodox as well as Catholi c 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 rein f orced by religion for he was a devoted clerical
and Aus tria has never abandoned the r ole of the
leading Catholic state : th e Serb was conciliated by
an exceptional measure of toleration Imperial rescripts
of 1 690 and 1 6 91 granted the Serb refugees in Hapsburg
territory complete freedom in the practice of their
ritual and allowed them to organise an autonomous
church under the presidency of a patriarch established
at Karlowitz
The erection of the Military Frontiers along th e
Save towards the close of Maria Theresa s reign
transformed the South Slavonic borderers into regular
soldiery and in the struggles against Napoleon and the
Risorgimento the Croat regiments were th e 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 th e Dynasty they
served was deeply indebted to their ad m irable constan cy
In 1 848 Croatia was th e only non Germ an province
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THE BALKANS
1 76
f estatio n of it against any constituted authority whatso
ever By his over logical policy he played into Russia s
h an ds Russia followed up her advantage with de cision
and when Serbia started her new life under Russian
a u spices the Danubi an Monarchy found its rival
es tablished on the very threshold of its Balkan doorway
Ever since the turn of the Turkish tide in 1 683 it had
been obvio u s th at th e ebb would never cease till all
Europe was free of the flood The Turk s presence
might be protracted but it h ad become provisio n al
and sooner or later he must vanish out of th e land
The Treaty of Adrianople taught Austrian statesmen
that in playing for the Turk s in h eritance t h ey must
reckon with Russia hen ceforward
In 1 86 7 therefore the Monarchy s road Eastwards
was alr eady overshadowed by the Russi an cloud but
the danger though formidable might still be braved
with impunity The cloud might pass without a storm
The Balkan drama was not yet played out
The
Serbs who had won their freedom with Russia s
aid were only a fraction of the race
The majo ri ty
sti ll remained under Turkish rule and the prin cipali ty
in the Morava valley aspired to liberate a
Serbia
irredenta
of gr eater territorial extent than itself
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s h i a w ere more than
the
u ti on was
Southwards ro u nd th e upper
0 ox in religion :
and its t ributaries the district of
m
Kossovo once the fo cus of the national life still awaited
its redemption Serbia and t h e Danubian Monarch y
were bo th under a vital necessity to advance in th e same
direction and bo th were O bstructed by the same Turkish
occupant of the land Why should they not advan ce
in unison to satisfy their common need at th e Turk s
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THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
expense ?
1 77
Serbia had one supreme desire the a cco m
of
her
national
unity
Russia
had
left
the
m
li
s
h
e
t
n
p
work half done and had alienated her protege e into
the bargain by intriguing to strengthen her influence
over her Serbia was ready to throw herself into the
arm s 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 chief
centres of modern Serb culture afforded a spiritual link
between the Hapsburg Empire and the autonomous
prin cipality
If the Hapsburg Government had
profited by the experience of 1 83 0 and espoused the
cause of Serbian nationality it might still have rallied
the wh ole South Slavonic race under its o wn banner
The breakdown of the reactionary re gime in 1 86 6
off ered the occasion for such a change of policy towards
the Southern Slavs Some concession to th e principle
of nationality was essential if the internal cohesion of
the Monarchy was to be saved : liberalism in this
particular instan ce would brin g positive gain as well ,
by setting the salvaged Danubian unit upon its new
path towards exp ansion under the most auspicious
circumstances
Unfortunately however reform was baulked by
compromise We h ave seen that the Ausgleich of 1 86 7
was no reconstruction of the Hapsburg Empire on the
basis of nationality but simply a deed of partnership
between Germans and Magyars for the continued o p
pression of the rest It made the Magyar oli g archy a
po wer in th e Monarch y That was the only new factor
it introduced and its eff e ct upon the forei g n policy
of Austria Hungary as a whole has been even more
disastrous than the internal race-co n flict to which it has
given vent within Hun g ary itself
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THE BALKANS
1 78
The Magyars were reckl ess egotisti c and well
organised T hese qualities gave th em an undue
influence in the Dual State and their geographi cal
S ituation m ade that in fluence p ar amount on the South
Eastern frontier A fter 1 86 7 the South Slavonic
problem and therewith the fate of the
Eas tward
”
Trend
passed more and more completely under
Magyar control at the very time when it was be coming
of e xtr eme impo rtance to the whole Danubian Unit
Th e terms of the Ausgleich assigned to the Crown
of St Stephen almost all the Southern Slavs withi n
1
The stru ggle of 1 848 49 had
the Hapsbur g frontier
inspired the Magyars and their Slavonic neighbours
with mutual fear and resentment and th e memory of
it did not promise well for the future of th e Hapsb u rg
Croats and Serbs now that they were abando ned to the
Ma gyars mer cy
W e h ave already e xamined the case of the Serbs in
Hun g ary : we have now to consider the relations
between th e Magyar government and th e vice -royalty
of Croatia Slavonia
Th e Ma gyars secured th is province for the Crown
”
of St Step hen basin g th eir claim upon their m ediz v al
suzerainty over it Such a historical argument was
of course without value yet the terms Croatia obtain e d
seemed generous enough to compensate her for incor
n with her larger neig h bour
ra
o
t
i
o
p
The Croato-Hungarian Compromise was voted by
th e Hung arian par liament and the Croatian diet in
It con ceded at once to the Croats and Serbs
1 86 8
beyond th e Drave fundamental rights whi c h the
nationalities in Hun gary itself have been struggling
vain ly for half a century to obtain There was no
Th e D alm atians w ere th e ex cep tio n
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1 80
THE BALKANS
By th e terms of the Croato -Hungarian
Com
promise this state built and state-owned railway was
”
common proper ty of the Crown of St Step h en an d
the control of it fe ll 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 S hould h ave
taken due account of both Croatian and Hung arian
interests but the fas h ion in whi ch Buda—
Pest inter
Compromise
as a
p reted its trust reve aled th e
fiction
The Magy ars have used their po h tical predomin ance
in th e common parliament to govern the Fiume railway
exclusively to Hungary s economic advantag e and
deliberately to the economic detriment of Croatia
Freightag e tariffs are manipulated so as to favour
through traffic from the A lf Old to Fiume at the e xpense
1
of local tr affi c in Croatia itself and every eff ort is made
to fo cus at Buda Pest all r ailway conne ction between
Croatia an d the rest O f the continent Where more
direct routes are already in existence not only tari ffs
but time tables are distorted to in duce goods an d
passen g ers 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
While Hungary
power to obstruct their development
itself is covered with a network O f lines the section of
the Fiume railway between Ag ram and the coast has
never been e xtended by a single branch so that Croatia
is deprived of independent communication with her
natural market in Austria on the one hand an d with her
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Essek o n th e B rav e to A gram was
lo w
place to Fiu m e tho u gh th e distan ce
i n th e fo rm er case is o n l y three fif th s as grea t as in th e latter
1
d
f
ff
ro m
th e g oo s- tarif
er th an th e tari fi ro m th e sam e
In
1 91 1
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THE S O UTHERN SLAVS
1 81
South- Slavonic 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 Magyars
towards them has been governed solely by th e deter
mination to force it upon t h em For this purpose it
was necessary to hold Croati an politics well in hand
and the settlement of 1 86 8 offered facilities for the
task
Croatia possesses her o wn autonomous legislature
but the
Ban
or Viceroy the supreme executive
authority is appointed by t h e ministry at Buda Pest
The Magyar government perceived in this o f fice an
instrument for keeping Croatia to h eel and t h ey foun d
th e right man for the post in Count Kh uen-Hed erv ary
1
The Count governed Croatia for twenty years by a
Tammany regime which h e worked out almost to
perfection He paralysed the O pposition in th e Diet
by fomenting the rivalry betwee n the Croat and Serb
sections of the population and secured a safe govern
me n tal majority over t h e disorganised nationalist votes
2
by the Magyar method of electoral corruption O ffi cial
pressure was not di fficult to exert for the entire political
patronage of the country belongs to the Ban but if the
polling turned out against him Khuen Hed erv ary was
always prepared to dissolve the newly elected diet and
repeat t h e process till h e obtained a house of a more
satisfactory complexion
Suc h were the e ff ects of Magyar domination upon the
South-Slavonic communities under the
Crown of
St Stephen
meanwhile Magyar influence had
In th e l atter year h e l en t his services to F ran cis
1 8 83 1 90 3
J o sep h an d accepted th e Hu n garian p rem iersh ip S ee ab o ve
Ev en th e D iet o f 1 86 8 which v o ted th e
Co m pro m ise with
Hu n gary h ad been packed with safe m en by ill egi tim ate m eans
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1 82
THE BAL KANS
asserted itself in the relations between t h e Monarch y
and the Southern Slavs beyond the frontier
In the summer of 1 875 there was a general rising
of the Christian peasants in Bosnia The Ottoman
Government failed to suppress it and in the following
summer the Serbian principality in the Morava vall ey
intervened in favour of th e Bosni an Serbs an d was
foll owed by Montenegro a little community of Serb
mountaineers above Cattaro fjord which had never
forfeited its independence to Austrian Venetian or
Turk In a few months the Ottoman ar m ies crushed
Serbia to earth and a sympath etic insurrection of the
Bulgar population along the D anube was quelled with
appalling savagery but the only result of these T urkish
successes was to bring Russia into the field Th e
Tsar declared war in Turkey in the spring of 1 877
before the close O f the year the Tchataldja lines were
forced and the Russian troops within striking distance
of Constantinople In March 1 878 the T urkish govern
ment signed the Treaty of San Stephano
Thus once more salvation had come to th e Balkan
Christians from th e Muscovite and the Danubian
Monarchy had m issed anoth er O pportunity This
time th e fault lay not with th e authoritarian principles
O f Vienna but with the Magyar chauvinism of Buda
Pest While Ru ssia was hesi tating in 1 876 the Monarchy
might have forestalled her by championing Serbia in
her desperate straits The Croats an d the Hungarian
Serbs were watching with intense anxie ty th e v icissi
tudes of their Slavonic b reth ren s struggle for liberty
yet so far from being guided by the feelings of such an
”
important element in the
Crown of St Stephen
th e Magyar government brutally trampled upon them
Not only were Hungarian subjects rigorously debarred
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1 84
THE BALKANS
ments h as produced remarkable results In stri king
contrast to the policy pursued in Croatia during the
same period by Magyar statesmans hi p the material
prosperity O f the country has been cons cientiously
fostered Law and order have been established road s
and railways have been built education has been
provided for On the o ther hand the development of
national self consciousness has been uncompro m is ingly
resisted
The hos tility of the Moslem Bosniaks was quickly
overcome Left stranded by th e ebb of the Turkish
tide they found their existence threatened once more
by th e O rth od ox and Catholic majority of th eir fellow
Slavs among whom they had lived a life apart as
pariahs or t askm asters for more than seven centuries
Naturally they turned for protection to the German
and th e Magyar to whom the Ch ris ti an S lavs were as
alien as to themselves
The Joint Ad m inistration on
its part espied in this powerful but denationalised
element the very ally it needed and set itself with
success to win the Bosniaks support
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eg a n “
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and to sti m u te their parti cularism still
ei r own
further Kallay even attempted to create the conscious
”
ness of a separate Bosniak language di ff erentiated
from the standar d South Slavoni c idiom of Croat and
Serb by a few insign ificant dialectical pe culiarities
M
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Th e adm in istratio n o f Bo snia w as assign ed to
th e J o in t Min istry f o r F in an ce
To tal po pu latio n o f Bo snia i n 1 895
S o u th-S lav o ni c elem en t abo u t
1
th e
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'
O
r th o d o x S er bs
l
Co ns istin g o f Mosl em Bo sn i aks
l Catho lic Croats
For th eir distrib u tio n see Map III
.
dep artm en t o f
THE SOU T HERN SLAV S
1 85
th e Serb element in t h e province which amounts to
two fif th s of the total population was correspondingly
discountenanced
This deliberate discri m ination 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 h ampered 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 th e Bosnian
Administration worked potently for stability and th e
step might plausibly have been explained as the final
act in t h e Danubian State s geographical evolution
Ever since the Hapsburgs had added Dalmatia as well
as Slavonia to their dominions the ultimate incorpora
tion of Bosnia had been a geographical necessity
Th e province is shaped like a triangular wedge and its
apex presses upwards perilously close to the lines of
communication between the centres of industry and
agriculture in the Danube basin and their ports on
the Adriatic seaboard The occu pation of the triangle
gave the Monarchy its s hort base line for a frontier
instead of the combined length of the other two sides
Th e General Staff might have vindicated it as a defensive
measure of purely military import
Unfo rtunately however the Berlin Conference
did not confine its mandate to Bosnia Serbia and
Montenegro were both granted considerable increases
1
of territory but their frontiers were carefully held
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pl
dp d
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S er ia o tain e in a itio n co m ete in e en en ce
su zerain t —Mo n ten egr o h ad n e er su m itte
to i t
1
y
v
b
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fro m O tto m an
1 86
THE BALKANS
asunder The Turkish Government was left in
1
possession of the Sandjak of Novi Bazar a strip O f
mountaino u s country which ran from South East to
North West in th e general direction of t h e Dinaric
Ran ge and serv ed as a land bridge between th e Dual
Monarchy now in oc cupation of Bosnia and the O ttoman
Empire sti ll estab lished in the interior of Macedonia
and along t h e littoral of t h e ZEgean To make the
maintenance of t hi s bridge secure the two powers
concluded a convention under whi ch t h e distri ct was
garrisoned by Austro Hungarian tr o ops without pre
judi ce to the Ottoman civil ad m inistration
Th e garrisoning of the Sandjak revealed the occupa
tion O f Bos n ia as the first step in a new movement
of offence The Trend Eastward was to fin d its
realisation in territorial expan sion to an ZEgean sea
board but instead of proceeding in unison with South
Slavonic national aspirations the Dual Monarchy had
made up its m ind to march over the Southern Slavs
dead bodies
Ever since 1 878 Austro Hungarian statesmanship h as
been pavin g the way for a fres h advance During
the Hami dian regime the garris ons in th e Sandjak
looked on while the Serb population of th e Kossovo
dis trict a few miles away was being exter minated by
bands O f Moslem A l b an iam
tea~ b k
us
t e tto m an Government
fi aT H ii figary ref u sed f o
i nte r
f ere sh e pro f essed s crupulous respect for Ottoman
sovereignty yet all t h e ti me she was spreading her
propaganda among O ttoman subje cts in the i m mediate
neighbourhood She es tab lished a virtual prote ctorate
over the Catholic Alban ian clans in the h interland of
2
S ko d ra a mountain ous region between Kossovo and
Pro vin ce
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1 88
THE BALKANS
At fir st the statesmans h ip of 1 878 seemed likely to
be justified by success T he supers ession of the San
Stephano Treaty by the diplomats at Berlin went far
to cancel t h e prestige whi ch Russia had won by her
military victory and the new prin cipality of Bulgaria
which the Powers had grudgingly allowed to come into
existence with in reduced limits did not prove a source
O f strength to its Russian creator
Like the Serbs after
1 82 9 the Bulgars found Russian tutelage a doubtful
blessing but they displayed far more vigour in shaking
the m selves free In an incredibly short time they
ventured to steer an in dependent course O f their own
Flouted by Bulgaria Russia looked to Serbi an loyalty
for consolation but Serbia had been mort ally o ff ended
by th e ere ction of a rival Slavonic state in the Balkan
area and had entered on a new politi cal p h ase
The throne of the prin cipality was occupied at thi s
1
time by Milan O b ren o v itch the most notable statesman
modern Serbia has produced He saw that Serbia was
not strong enough to achieve her des tin y unaided 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 deter mi ned to take advantage of the
inevitable lull for the development of his country s
material prosperity Geo gr ap hy h as made the Morava
valley a natural appendage of t h e lVIid d le Danubian
B asin The Danubi an Monarchy spreads its bulk
between Serbia and Western Europe and the little state
could not be gin its economic growth unless it had secured
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d er th e Cro wn o f S t S tep h en in Bo sn ia th ey we e u n d er th e j o in t
pro tecto rate o f th e D ua l Mo narchy in S e bia an d Mo te egro th ey
w m em b ers o f in depen de t n tio n al st tes in Kosso vo they were st l l
s bj ect to Tu r kis h m isgo v ern m e t
He ascen d ed it in 1 86 8
un
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1 89
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
its big neighbour s good will Moved by these con
siderations Milan did not hesitate to sacrifice national
ideals and turn his kingdom into a satellite of Austria
Hun g ary
The ne xt ten years witn essed a struggle between the
king supported by the Liberal or
Progressive Party
on the one han d 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 1 885 an
opportunity presented itself for striking at Bulgaria
and jealousy prompted Serbia to seize it She declared
war only to suff er a severe defeat and nothing but the
Dual Monarchy s veto prevented th e Bulgarian army
from marching upon Belgrade This intervention
marked the zenith of Austro Hungarian ascendency
1
over Serbia yet Milan actually survived the bankruptcy
of his foreign policy It was not till 1 889 that he was
d riven 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
parliament In 1 893 the young king took th e reins into
his own hands and attempted to govern through a
Radical min istry but the experiment soon broke down
The Radicals endangered the understanding with the
Dual Monarchy and wrough t havoc with t h e publi c
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lk
d ly w d w
b ld
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d p
R
l p
v
l
y
v
f
d l
w
A n d a so th e lo est eb b o f
A t
u ssian in flu en ce in th e B a ans
ith ra n h er
th e o u t rea
o f th e war,
u ssia h ad im m e ia te
m i itar sta
hich was en gage in u i in g u p th e B u garian arm
S h e h o e that this step o u
at o n ce co n ci iate S er ia an d teach th e
ay ar
B u gars that th e co u n o t is ense Wi th ussian assistan ce
When th e Bu gars im ro ise icto rio us gen era shi o u t o f their nati e
reso u rces, an d S er ia a
ie to th e D u a Mo nar ch to sa e h er ro m
th e co n se u en ces o f
e eat
u ssia was
ea t two stag gerin g blo
s
1
l
b
k
ff w
y
p d
w w d l
q
l
R
d
w ld
y ld
p v dv
b ppl d
df R
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THE BALKANS
1 90
finances
a political catastrophe was imminent and
the country recalled the only m an who could avert it
Five years after his e xile the O ld kin g returned to
Belgrade in triumph His poli cy had conquered
Serbia submitted herself to his gu i d an ce party rancours
cooled down and the national energy concentrated
itself in economi c channels
King Milan s success did n o t fail to produce its e ff ect
upon the Russian Foreign O ffice Deserted by two
of her protegees 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
B alkans were not essentially incompatib le R u ssia s
obje ctive was the Black Sea Straits : th e Danubian
Monarchy coveted an ZEgean seaboard There was no
geograp hical obstacle to the partition of the Balkan
peninsula by the two powers into an Eastern and a
1
Western sphere and Russia was now prepared to
consider Austro Hungarian overtures to this e ff e ct
Th e advent of the next phase in Turkey s dissolution
pre cipitated a compromis e
Th e Berlin Congress had stipulated for administrative
reform throughout th e territories ab andoned to Ottoman
2
sovereignty in Macedonia and th e Porte had published
a pretentious sch eme of enlightened government but
the proje ct remained a dead letter and the Ch ristian
populations at last determined to help themselves The
situation however was complicated by their disunion
Th e idea h ad a lready co m m en d ed ts elf to J o sep h II j u st a cen tu ry
befo re In 1 789 h e m ad e an alli an ce with Catheri n e o f Ru ssia f o r th e
p arti tio n o f th e Otto m an Em pire b u t th e Tu rks d efen ded them selv es
sto u tly
an d th e v u l tu res soo n div erted th eir atten tio n to th e P o li s h
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f
yed to co ver th e three Otto m an v il ayets
o f Kosso vo Mo n astir an d S alo n ik
A n u n o ficial nam e em plo
go v ern m en ts
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THE BAL KANS
1 92
Th e Murzs teg Programme seemed to have started
the Dual Monarchy upon th e l ast stage of its advance
towards Salonika without committing it to the dreaded
con flict wi th Russia In 1 904 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 the m selves
Apparently th e Eastward Trend had an absolutely
l ear field before i t : their good fortune had exceeded
their expectations
At the very moment however when Russia retired
from the lists South Slavonic nationali ty was coming of
a g e and preparing to ch ampion its o wn cause
In 1 900 A le xander of Serbia made an unfortu nate
marriage and broke away from his fath er s influence
His action was bitterly resented by the country Milan
died before he could recover his authority and his loss
increased the general misgiving A conspiracy was
formed among the O fficers of the army and in 1 90 3 King
Ale xander and Queen Draga were murdered in their
palace under the most brutal circumstances
Th is atro city did not strike the Austro Hun g arian
1
Foreign Ministry as important at the time but Austro
German and Magyar hatred has battened upon it during
th e stru g gle between the Dual Monarchy an d Serbia
which h as supervened In t h e O ctober of 1 90 8 th e
writer happened to be dining in an Oxford college where
a distinguished Magyar was a guest He was an owner
2
of vineyards in the Toka y district a major of Honved
cavalry and a professor of mathematics into the bargain
in fine he was a typical representative of the cultured
Austria H n g ary Russia an d Mo ten egro we e th e o ly fo reign
se ta
o t tem po rarily with d raw th eir d plo m a tic rep
states w hich d i d
r ves fro m B el grad e as a p ro tes t
Y eo m an y
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THE SOUTHERN SLAV S
1 93
Whi g oligarchy Th e Balkan War h ad just broken out
and t h e name of Serbia was mentioned in the conversa
tion when suddenly the table was startled by an
exclamation
The Serbs
Liars and t hieves 1 They
killed their king and queen with bayonets Thieves
and liars
During the hush which followed a
graduate of the college who was by birth a Galician
Jew was heard remarking aside t h at in our part of the
world you can always guess a man s nationality by t h e
”
people h e abuses
The comment hit the mark The hate was primary
in the professor s mind his justification of it an after
th ought In arriving at his estimate of th e Serbs
national character he had never consulted his reason
had h e done so it would have sho wn him t h e absurdity
of jud ging a young nation by the scandals in its high
places The history of Serbia since 1 878 is not to be
divined in the intri g ues of a handful of politi cians at
Belgrade but in the industry of the peasants wh o have
been purging from t h e Morava basin the traces of
Turkis h misrule Th e success with which t h ey have
overcome their initial h andicap and brought their
country into line wit h more fortunate parts of Europe
is sufficient to vindicate their capacity for civilisation
Wh en Alexander was murdered his father s economi c
po licy was already bearing fruit Serbia h ad developed
her agrarian resources to the point of producing an
annual surplus she was now in a position to enter th e
field of international commerce Her natural market
was the industrial world of Central Europe and the
direct line for th e export of h er produce accordingly lay
thr ough the D anubi an Monarchy S O long however
as she monopolised all Serbia s economic outlets
Austria Hungary could impose on Serbian exports
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THE BAL KANS
1 94
whatever prices she chose
economic independence
could only be achieved by openin g up an alternative
route Alexander O b ren o v itch was succeeded on the
th rone of Serbia by Peter Karageo rgev itch the h eir of a
rival dyn asty and the first important act of th e new reign
was the negotiation in 1 90 6 of a tariff convention with
Bulgaria wh ich promised Serbia access on reasonable
terms to a port on the Black Sea
This sudden ch ange in the relations of the two
principalities caused considerable consternation at
Vienn a and Bud a Pest Not only did it threaten to
reli eve Serbia from her economic thraldom to the Dual
Monarchy it portended a political entente between th e
rival Slavoni c groups in the Balkan Peninsula More
ominous still it coincided with a similar movement
among the South Slavoni c citizens of the Monarchy
i tse lf
When Khuen H ed erv ary r esigned the Croatian vice
regen cy in 1 90 3 he left no competent successor behind
him and the political life of Croatia began to revive
T he prolonged parliamentary crisis at Buda Pest which
foll owed the overthrow of the Magyar Liberal Party
produced its echo South of the B rav e In the Autumn
of 1 90 5 a conference of Croat deputies from the
Croatian Diet and the Austrian Reichsrath was held at
1
Fiume
A resolution was adopted expressing sym
pathy with the Magyar Coalition in its stru ggle agains t
the Crown but demanding that the liberties for which
the Coalition professed to be fighting should be extended
to Croatia as we ll the Compromise of 1 868 was to be
O bserved in spirit as well as in letter and constitutional
Th e in itiativ e cam e fro m th e Cro at l ea d ers in D alm atia wh o as
citizens o f A us tr ia h ad b een abl e to d evelo p a m o re u n tram m el ed
po li t cal activity” th an their l ess fo rtu n ate b reth ren u n d er th e Cro w n
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1 96
THE BAL KANS
D anubian Monarch y must seize this opportunity to
realise its ambitio n s or else ab andon them for ever
A eren th al deliberately embarked upon the death
struggle wi th the Southern Slavs
The first bout in th e confli ct did not result in his
favour During 1 90 7 he retaliated upon Serbia for her
e ff ort towards economic liberty by waging a remorseless
1
tariff war against her
The Serbian peasantry suff ered
severely but they showed unexpected obstinacy :
instead of coming to terms they developed new outlets
an d markets with such enterp rise that A eren th al h ad
to abandon his campaign as a failure
Ne xt year however he returned to the ch arge In
January 1 90 8 he concluded a convention with the
O ttoman Government for the construction of a railway
through the Sandjak of N o v ib azar which was to link
the Austro Hungarian railway system in Bosni a with
the Turkis h rai lhead at NIitro vitza His object was to
side-track Serbia by diverting to this new route the
through traffic between Central Europe and th e lEgean
littoral wh i ch had utilised hitherto t h e line th rough
1
B elgrade an d up the Morava valley to Salonika
He
paid dearly for this move for it drew Russia on ce more
into th e B alkan ar ena
Russian opinion regarded the railway scheme as a
direct violation of the M ii rzsteg agreement : it por
tended the consummation O f the D anubian rival s
”
Eastward Trend
The Government shook o ff its
leth argy and determined upon a counter-stroke In
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Nickn am ed th e Pig War in Au stria Hu n gary swin e b ein g
S erb ia s chi ef articl e o f expo rt
Th e Mi tro vitza lin e trav erses th e K o sso vo district an d j o in s th e
L ike th e Bo snian system an d th e p ro po sed
S alo nika R ail way at Usku b
co n n ectin g hn k it is n arro w g au g e w hi l e th e B el grad e U sku b S al o ni ka
Railway is bu ilt on th e regu lar Co n tin en tal stan dard S ee M ap III
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THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
1 97
June 1 908 the Tsar entertained King Edward VII at
Reval and Great Britain and Russia announced in
conjunction a new and drastic scheme of Macedoni an
1
reform
The eff e ct was momentous A
Young Turk
committee h ad been planning for years the overthrow
of Abd u l ham id s absolute government Educated by
exile in Western Europe they had imbibed its national
c h auvinism as well as its liberal ideals Th e Reval
Programme
convinced them that Turkey wo u ld
forfeit th e sovereignty over her European territories
altogeth er unless she could accomp lish immediate
reform from within They resolved to risk everythin g
to save the integrity of the Empire The revolution
was started among the troops in Macedonia before the
next mont h was out and in a few days T urkey was
converted into a constitutional state
The duel between A eren th al and Serbia had thus set
all the Balkans and the Nearer East in commotion before
the autumn of 1 90 8 Meanwhile the South Slavonic
problem had rapidly been assu m ing more serious pro
portions within the borders of the Dual Monarchy
The Spring of 1 907 witnessed the inevitable
breach between the Serbo Croat Coalition Party and
the Magyar Coalition Ministry In a bill submitted
1
by Francis Kossuth to the parliament at Buda-Pest
Magyar was decl ared the sole o fficial 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 clear contravention of the
Compro m ise of 1 868 by which the South-Slavo n ic
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C o mm o n fear o f Germ an y h ad led th ese two p o wers to co m po se th eir
o u tstan din g d ifferen ces th e year b efo re
1
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Th e so n o f L o u is
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THE BALKANS
8
19
tongue h ad been guaranteed O fficial status with in th e
li m its of Croatia In proposing it the Magyar Radi cals
h ad shown their h and Their Liberal predecessors
had confined the poli cy of M agyarisatio n to Hung ary
this bill was an attempt to ext end it to Croatia
T he Serbo Croat deputies in the parli ament at Buda
Pest at once resorted to obstru ction They were
defeated by a ta cti cal man oeuvre and the bill became law
but th e struggle was only continued the more fiercely
at Agram At the begin n ing of 1 90 8 the Magyar
government dismissed the
Ban
then in offi ce as
unequal to th e situation and specially appointed B aron
Paul Rauch to supe rintend as Viceroy the impending
elections in Croatia yet Rauch though he strenuously
applied Kh uen Hed erv ary s metho ds did not obtain
from them h is gif ted predecessor s results T he
Croato Serb coalition secured an absolute majority in
the new Diet and all that Rauch could do was to
prorogue the session for an indefin ite period and govern
in defiance of the constitution
During the months therefore that followed the
Turkis h revolution A eren th al 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 overwhelm ing
blow In October 1 90 8 he repudiated the sovereignty
of the Porte over Bosnia and declared the annexation
of the Occu pied Provinces to the Austro Hungarian
1
Monarchy
This act at once provoked a European crisis but
A eren th al showed himself not unequal to the occasion
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with B l g
which
ly d e o ced O tto m a suz rai n ty d p o cl m d th
sim u l t n eo
ann exati o n
(in a sim il a ens e) o f Easte n R u m eli
1
Th e
a
co up
us
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efi ected
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THE BALKANS
20 0
two camps into whi ch the Europe an powers were divided
A eren th al h ad unchained forces beyond his contr ol
He had assert ed his will in a problem of vital impo rtance
to the Danubian Monarchy but he had done so at th e
price of transferring th e ini tiative for the future to th e
dominant partn er in the Central European allian ce
The aftermath of the crisis withi n the Monarchy
itself was h ardly less embarrassing
Baron Rauch
had rid himself of t h e Croatian Diet for the moment :
he was resolved to ru in the Croato -Serb Coalition before
he faced it again Durin g t h e early summer of 1 90 8
Pan Serb
his O fficial press worked up a scare of
conspiracy ; in July the first arrest was made on the
charge of High Treason and before the end of Jan u ary
1 90 9 no less than fif ty eight Serb citizens of Croatia
all people of O bscure station were in prison pending
t h eir trial on this account The judicial proceedings at
not open till March when the external cris is
g its déten te and the attention of Europe
was concentrated upon them before they dragged to
their belated close in October Thirty one of th e
vi ctims were sentenced to terms of imprisonment
varying from twelve to five years but Rauch had failed
in his real objective : all attempts to imp licate 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 c haracter
During th e same month of March in which the
Bosnian crisis ended and t h e Agram trial began the
N eu e Freie Presse newspaper had published at Vienna
an article on the relations of the Dual Mon archy to
the South Slavonic problem by an emin ent Austrian
historian Dr Fried j u n g Thi s article was writt en in
an authoritative tone it specifically charged the Serbo
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THE SOU THERN SLA V S
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Croat Coali tion Wi th being the exponents and tools of
agencies in Belgrade and supported its assertions by
quotations from documents Some of the documents
purported to be o ffi cial correspondence of the Serbian
Foreign Office others were minutes of a semi-O fficial
revolutionary society but Dr Friedj u n g when chal
lenged refused to reveal their provenan ce and the
Coalition deputies accordingly entered a libel action
against him at Vienna
The hearing of this case only came on in December
1 90 9 after the treason trial was over but this time the
proceedings l asted no longer than a fortnight The
trial at Agram had cast a lurid light upon the methods
of espionage employed by the Austro Hungarian
Ad m inistration in Bosnia Croatia and Dalmatia now
at Vienna Dr Fried j u n g s documents were revealed
as forgeri es concocted within the walls of the Austro
Hungarian legation at Belgrade communicated to
Fried j u n g as genuine by t h e Joint Foreign O ffice and
utilised by h im in all good faith
The action was hastily stopped by a compro m ise
before th ese results could be registered in th e verdict
of th e court but the evidence of t h e witnesses h ad
created an immense sensatio n Dr S p alaiko v itch
the incriminated Serbian o fficial p u t in an appearance
and brilliantly vindicated himself and his country
The Tch ech sa v a n t Professor Masaryk of Prag who
counted amon g his pupils men of the rising generation
in all the Slavonic countries of the Danubian Monarchy
and the Balkans prove d 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 1 90 9 he was elected as one of the Austrian
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THE B ALKANS
20 2
representatives This gave him an opportunity for a
direct passage of arms with the Joint Foreign NIin ister
A eren th al hardly attempted a defence and M asaryk
pro ceeded remorselessly with his interpellations till he
had pieced together and exposed the whole o fli cial
A eren th al aspired to be the
Austrian
conspiracy
B ismarck
without possessing the capa city of his
Prussi an ensample The exposure was as damning
”
as that of the Ems Telegram and it had overtaken
him with disconcerting speed
Thus ended the firs t bout in t h e conflict before the
next began Bar on A eren th al had been removed from th e
1
scene but during five short years of o ffice he had fixed
the lines on which it should be fought to its conclusion
B aron Rauc h did not survive the Fried j u n g incident
early in 1 91 0 he was superseded and the Croatian Diet
was convened once more T he respite however was
brief The ideals of th e Serbo Croat Coalition and of
Magyar nationalism were not compatible with one
anoth er So long as Magyar ministries could control
th e politics O f Croatia it was possible to observe in
outward form the Compromise of 1 868 now that the
majority in th e Diet was possessed by a party truly
rep resentative of th e Croati an people co operation
between the parliaments at Ag ram and Buda P est h ad
become impracti cable and the Compromise inevitably
broke down A fresh deadlock led once more to the
suspension of constitutional government in Croatia in
th e spring of 1 91 2 and almost i mme di ately afterwards
the Serb Church in the Hapsburg dominions was
deprived of its charter whi ch had been consistently
respe cted since its original grant in 1 6 9 1
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Fro m O cto b er 1 90 6 u n til early in
retirem en t.
1 912
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f
a ter
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THE BALKANS
20 4
Dalmatian coast and nation ality as well as geography
supports Serbia s title to an outlet in this dire ction , since
th e whole territory that intervenes betw een Belgrade
1
and Spalato is occupied by a homogeneous South
Slavonic population Yet h ere too Serbia s ubiquitous
neigh bour blocked the way : the crisis of 1 90 8 had
shown that Austria Hun gary was established j ust as
permanently West of the Drina as North of th e Save
and that Serbia s dream of concessions in this quarter
had been Utopian
A casual glance at the map suggests that after the
annexation of t h e Kossovo d istri ct Serbia might have
engineered a railway across it to the Montenegrin port
of Antivari and thus obtained an outlet only slightly
fu rth er to the South but with a map that represents
the re lief of the l and th e idea will be d ispelled by closer
examination Antivari possesses a tolerable h arbour
but an impassable hi nterlan d The m assif of the
Black Mountain rises immediately behind it and
the very physical qualities th at have safeguarded
Montenegro s liberty have denied her the possibi lity
of railway development The Dinaric barrier between
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ppro xim ately at th e m id po in t o f th e S o u th S l avo nic
coast half way between Fiu m e o n th e o n e h an d an d th e m o th o f th e
Bo yan a Riv er o n th e o ther It is d esti n ed by g eo gra p hy to b e th e
prin cip al po rt o f th e S o u th S l avo n ic a ea b t at p es t its capaci t es
ailway co nn ct o ns W th its hin ter l an d
are n eu tra lised by th e la ck o f
Th e B os i an Ra lway h as n o t yet o p en ed is way to
(see M ap
t h o n th e estuary o f th e
an y po rt fu rth er u p th e co as t th an M etk O
Naren ta tho u gh a b ran ch diver ges fro m that po in t in th e o ppo s te
di rectio n to Ragu sa an d co n t n u es stil l furth er S o th East as f a a
Casteln u o vo at th e en tran e o f Cattaro fj o rd To lin k th e S er b an
rail way system W th th ese actu a l o r po te ti al po rts o n th e D alm atian
ed
A S erbian lin e
coast li ttl e f rth er rai lway co ns tru ct o n is req
Mo rava an d its tri bu tary th e Tzetin ya
ascen ds th e v all ey o f th e Weste
as f ar West as U j itz e : a b an ch o f th e Bo ni an Railway starts fro m
S arayevo cro sses th e D rin a at Vishegr ad an d ru ns right u p to th e
Th d stan ce between th e two rail
S er b an fro n tie at V ard ish te
h eads is les s th a twen ty fi e m iles ( ee M ap
1
l
S p a ato lies a
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THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
20 5
the Danube-basin and th e sea is at no poin t more
di fficult to surmount
Serbia was t h us driven to look furt her South As
soon as th e Turkis h resistance in North ern Macedonia
had been overcome she despatched a column by forced
marches across the Albani an mountains and occupied a
stretch of the Turkish coast line extending from Alessio
at the mouth of the Drin as far Southward as th e port
of Durazzo
At this point the Dual Monarchy interv ened Count
Berchtold who had succeeded Baron A eren th al at th e
Joint Ministry for Foreign Af fairs set his veto upon th e
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 an d
this time against Russia on th e Galici an frontier yet
by Sir Edward Grey s e ff orts the catastroph e was once
more averted and Serbia yielded to B erch to ld s demand
He made play
B erch to ld s action was not defensible
with the Austro -Hun g arian protectorate over t h e North
Albanian clans and posed as the champion of a small
nationality against its unscrupulous neighbour yet in
a precisely similar case the Magyars h ad avowedly
been sacrificing the interests of the South ern Slavs in
Croatia to their own need for railway communi cation
with t h e sea The hypocrisy of B erch to ld s plea was
enhanced by the fact t hat Serbia unlike 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 itse lf
Even th e occasion for this stroke seemed ill ch osen
Feeling in Croatia and Bosnia was already inflamed
ag ainst the government by the internal situation the
Serbian successes h ad furt h er ag itated it by a wave of
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THE BALKANS
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sympathetic enthusiasm and t h e morale of Serbia
herself was very di fferent in the spring of 1 9 1 3 from
what it had been in the Spring of 1 90 9 B er ch to ld s
diplomacy however had an ulterior object He
divined that Serbia now entirely debarred from the
Adriatic would insist on obtaining an l Egean outlet
in compensation T his would bring her into col lision
i
with Bulgarian clai ms in Macedon a the Balkan allies
would quarrel over the division of their Turkish spoil
their formidable harmony would be destroyed and after
they had e xhausted one another by an internecine war
the Monarchy s path towards Salonika would once more
be open
In startin g this train of events Berchtold overreached
hims elf Serbia duly enlarged h er Macedonian claims
the tension betw een the Balkan allies incre ased and
towards the end of June 1 9 1 3 Bulgaria opened the
Second Balkan War by a treacherous night attack upon
the Serbian outposts along the line of the Vardar
Yet the result O f this secondary contes t was an even
greater surprise than the collapse of the Turks Th e
Greek and Serbian armi es almost immediately assumed
the O ff ensive 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 Bulgari an resistance was completely
broken The Treaty of Bukarest which de fined the
terms of the re settlement was a proclamation of
B erch to ld s failure
Serbia s gains were far greater than they would have
been if the T reaty of London had remained in force
and the four allies had settled their claims by peaceful
compromise The Dual Monarchy s d isco m fitu re was
proportionately ag gravated In the autumn of 1 91 3
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208
T HE BAL KANS
formidable military power Th ey would be s trong in
thems elves and worst of all they would b e stron g in
their friends
B erch to ld s di plomacy h ad exorcised th e first B alkan
Confederacy only to conjure up a more dangero u s
en ten te in its place
Th e alliance between Serbia an d
Bulgaria was essentially di re cted agai n st Turkey once
the Turks were driven be hind the Chataldja lines its
positive stimulus would in any case have van ished
Roumania however was as dis interested in respect of
Turkey as Bulgaria was towards the national problems
of the Middle Danube basin and h er new understand
in g with Serbia could h ave but one meaning
Just
as Serbia had made co m mon cause with Bulgaria to
liberate the Slav populations under Ottoman rule so
she would fight shoulder to shoulder with Roumania
to wr ench away from t h e Hapsburg complexus the
irredenta coveted by eac h of them in this quarter
The cherished dream of a
Trend Eastward
was
fading away and the forebo ding of a
Wes tw ard
Trend at the Monar chy s e xpense was be ginning to
take its place
Thus ended the second bout in the conflict between
the Dual Monar ch y and the South Slavonic nationality
Could the Monarchy retrieve its position befo re t h e
drama was played out
Yes if t h e face of Europe were
ch anged by a trial of strength between the opposing
camps into which the European Powers were divided
If the central group triumphed the Danubian partn er
could snatch success out of failure and lay han ds upon
1
Salonika after all
Would Germany the dominant member in the
partners hip be willing to stake her all upon t his issue ?
S ee th e B ri tish White Pap er N o 82
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THE S O UTHERN SLAVS
2 09
Yes again for while the events of 1 908- 9 had already
endowed th e South Slavonic problem with international
significance the solution of the Moroccan question after
the crisis of 1 91 1 had promoted it to be th e supreme
”
test of the Bal ance of Power
Th ese considerations counselled th e Joint Minister
for Forei gn Aff airs to precipitate a dénou emen t at th e
first opportunity and the murder of the Archduke
Francis Ferdin and at Sarayevo in June 1 9 1 4 presented
him with the initiative
The crime was perpetrated by a South Slavon ic
subject of th e Monarchy a Bosnian Serb It is idle
to bran d 2 whole race with an individual s misdeed
Orsini s attempt to assassinate Napoleon III in 1 858
did not stain the honour of the Italian people still less
did Napoleon tax the Sar dinian Government with
responsibility for the act of a man who was not a
Sardinian subject There is no shadow of proof th at
King Peter s ministers were implicated in the present
the facts
aff air any more than Cavour was in the other
can only be established wh en the trial of the murderers
h as 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 u n
provoked attack as a
punitive expedition
They
remind us that when the A fghans massacred Sir Louis
Cav agn ari 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 h is camp -fire during a tour along
the North-West F rontier you would carry fire and
”
sword through the hi lls without remorse
We will accept the comparison if we may carry it to
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THE BALKANS
2 10
a sustained conclusion If we suppose so much we
must likewise suppose that the inhabitants of Ireland
an d the Scottish Highlan ds happen thems elves to be
Afghans in race that th e Welsh and th e Cornis hmen
if they are not actually A f ghan s too speak some closely
allied Persian dialect and that Afghan is reco gnised
1
as an o fficial language in the British Navy : add to this
an inflexible system of universal conscription an d we
shall be able to picture our Afghans from Ireland and
Scotland bein g mobilised in company with th eir
English-speaking neighbours and marched across the
Indian frontier to slay their barbarous brethren who
had sniped an Eng lish grandee ?
Wh atever the German and the Magyar may feel abo ut
their onslaught upon Serbia for their South Slavoni c
fellow ci tizens it is compulsory civil war
This abominable culmination of the Dual System
is the Th ird Act in the South S lavonic drama but the
plot has broadened out T his time we are parti cipatin g
in th e action ourselves and playing for life and death
If we and our allies succeed in dominating the fin a le
in what guise will the original actors emerge from their
protracted ordeal
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If the Dual Monarchy su ffers defeat in the present
struggle its South Slavonic subjects will find thems elves
for the firs t time at liberty to consult their own interes ts
instead of bein g exploited in the selfish interest of oth er
nationali ties We can be sure beforehand of their
Ev ery o fli cer in th e Austro H u n garian Navy is req uired to sho w
p o fiCi en cy in th e S o u th S l avo nic to n gu e b ecau se th e cr ews are dr awn
alm o st en ti r ely fro m th e C ro at po p u l atio n o f D al m a tia an d Is tria
an d ar e ap t to u n d erstan d n o thin g b u t th eir n ativ e l an gu ag e b eyon d
th e b are Ita lian wo rds o f co m m an d
To m ak e o u r co m p ariso n exact w e m u st im ag in e t ha t th e Afghan
wh o fired th e das tardly sho t p ro v ed to h ai l fro m I rel an d
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THE BALKANS
2 12
Th is gulf will take many years to bridge an d h ere again
cir cum s tances have placed the Southern Slavs at a
disadvantag e they have been compelled to begin the
work of construction from the wrong end
In Italy the initiative came from th e most advanced
Startin g from P iedmont on
community in the country
the borders of France the movement proceeded m eth o di
cally towards the East and South : Lombardy Emilia
and Tus cany were consolidated into a national state
before Garibaldi sailed for Si cily with his Th ousand
If Piedmont had shared the fate of Venetia and
Lombardy and had been assigned to Austria at the
settlement of 1 8 1 4 the course of events would have
been very d ifferent By 1 860 the North would have
been conso lidated not as an independent kingdom but
as a complex of provinces jumbled together in the
Hapsburg collection Italian Natio n alism would have
been forced to abandon Tuscany and Romagna and
would have found no stan ding ground North of th e
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
do n ia after h er Balkan victori es he might have preached
a crusade against Austria and liberated all the North
from her yoke with the assistance of her European rivals
yet when the oppressor had been driven beyond the
Alps h is highly civi lised victi m s and their Papal
champion would have been left in an embarrassing
position Th e Pope would have become th e hero of
the No rth but th e clerical ideals which h ad inspired his
victorious armi es would not have commended th em
selves to Itali ans th e other side of the Apenn ines
The Northerners releas ed from Austrian
strong
government would h ave hes i tated to accept a cleri cal
parliamentari anism in its place
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THE S O UTHERN SLAVS
2 13
T his fantastic an alogy may serve to indicate the
attitude of patriotic Croats towards th e Orth odox
nationalism of the Morava principality Wh en Serbia
prostrated the Turkish and Bulgarian armies in two
successive campaigns her triump h reacted upon the
Sout h- Slavonic provinces of the Dual Monarc hy The
Serbs of Hungary and Croatia tu rned th eir eyes in
e arnest towards Belgrade and th e Croats took pride in
their kinship with the vi ctors This spi ritu al exalta
tion brought the South Slavonic nation to self con
scio u sn ess but we must guard against over-estimating
its effect The spell of the Hapsburg is broken and
Croatia Dalmatia and Bosnia are ready to transfer their
allegiance to the Karageo rgev itch yet they will not do
”
so at the sacrifice of their historical sentiment
We have noted the strength of tradition in this part
of Europe When Croatia and Dalmatia are set free
their fir st impulse will be to restore the
T riune
1
as it e xisted in the eleventh century A D
Kingdom
an d th ey will insist on entering the South Slavonic
Union on this b asis Th e national state will thus take
shape as a federation of at least two members
In B os n ia the Serb element predominates over the
two others and Serbia will doubtless incorporate the
whole country Th e Bosnian problem involved her in
h er struggle for life and death and the possession of
th e province is the stake of victory as the protagonist
in the national cause Serbia is worthy of her reward
Wheth er the federation will contain more than two
members depends upon the choice of Montenegro
No South Slavonic community cheris h es so glorious a
tradition as she but her history is bound up with the
national adversity S h e remained a virgin fo rtress of
Cro atia S l avo n ia D alm atia
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THE BALKANS
2 14
liberty wh en all h er brethren had succumbed to alien
masters : wh en they are free once more h er isolation
will have lost it significance and if she clings to her
particularism she will be holding her friends at arm s
length instead of her foes She will be cutting herself
o ff from the social and economic development upon
which the South Slavoni c world will enter as soon as
the preliminary 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 Croati a Slavonia
Dalmatia on the one hand and a Greater Serbia
on the other with an autonomous Montenegro as a
possible third partner
1
Its geograp hi cal frontiers are determined already
by the boundaries of t h e several provinces On t h e
North West it will inherit the former frontier between
”
Austria and the Crown of St Stephen on the North
E ast it will be divided from Hungary by the line of the
1
West it will take
Drave and the Danube on the South—
possession of the Adriatic coast line from Spizza to
3
Fiume
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S ee M ap 111
1
Th e tri an g u ar en c a e et een th e D ra e, th e M u r, an d th e
C ro ats, an d sh o u th ere o re
S tyrian o r er is i n h a ite ex c u si e
ro ati a in a
i tio n , ins tea
of
b e assi gn e to
ein g in c u e , as at
p resen t, in th e ki n g o m o f u n gar
1
Th e co ast sho u
b e istr i u te
et een th e m em ers o f th e
D alm ati a, b u t
A t resen t i t is en tire m o n o o is e
o nf e erac
"
th e
Triu n e Ki n g o m , as th e rice O f its articu arism , sho u ce e
to S er ia an d
o n ten egro su ch
arts o f th e D a m atia n itto ra as h e
S o u th - E as t o f th e N ar en ta estu ar , in c u in g M etko v itch an d agu sa,
attaro
ail w a , as
e
as th e sh o res o f
th e term ini o f th e B o sn i an
j o r , hich is th e n atu ra oo r a o f th e o n ten egri n
i ghl an s
Th e
Triu n e Kin g o m sho u b e co m ensate in th e o o site
u ar ter
h erso , an d L essm
th e a
i tio n o f thr ee is an s— eg ia ,
at
res en t in c u e
u stria
in th e Kus ten lan d
pro vm ce o f
1
.
l
lv b w
v
b d
b d l v ly by
ld
f
d
C
dd
d b
l dd
d
H
y
ld
d b d b w
b
C d y
p
ly
p l d by
d
p
p
l
ld d
b
M
p
l
l
l
y
l d
R
R
y
w ll
C
f d w
l d wy
M
H
d
d
ld
p
d
pp
q
by
dd
l d V l C
p
l dd
A
.
.
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2 16
THE BALKANS
an archy it superseded He will regard the national idea
with suspicion an d the long deferred but inevitable
solution of the agrarian problem will seem to confirm
his fears by singlin g him out from the Christian
peas an ts and impoverishing hi m to the ir advantage
Yet the spread of education will break down even the
Bos n iak s sullen tradition As th e consciousness of his
Slavoni c language gro ws upo n h im the barrier of h is
oriental reli gion will melt away Nationalism will
ulti mately heal the breach between the descen d ant of the
B o gu m ils and the men of his own blood from whom he
has been alienated for eight centuries by religion
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A
B a lkan Zo llv erein
The secession of the Southern Slavs will dislocate the
structure of the Danubian Monarchy more seriously
than any mutilations on its Carpathian border T he
Hungarian member of the Dual Partnership will be cut
o ff from the sea by an independent state of its own
1
calibre occupying the whole region between the
Morava bas in and the Austrian frontier The Magyars
will find the tables turned upon them T hey will
experience henceforth th e geographical disabilities they
imposed upon Serbia heretofore Deprived of a coast
line o f their own they will be compelled to make terms
with one of th eir neighbo urs to secure access to a port
Satisfy this vital need they must yet they will still
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A red ced H gary wil l sti ll n u m ber n ea ly tw elve m i llio n
in h ab tan ts : a S o th S lav n ic Un ion will m ster so m ew hat u n d er
1
u
i
n in e, Vi z .
r
un
u
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o
u
A BALKAN Z O LLVERE IN
2 17
be free to choose between two alternative me ans of
doing so They may address themselves either to
Austria or to th e South Slavonic Union and the issue
will probably be taken up by the two politi cal parties
which have been struggling for the allegiance of the
Magyar nation
Tisza and his following will press for closer union
with 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 an d
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 Fiu m e
is only sundered by the Istrian peninsula from the
Austrian harbour of Trieste and the one port is hardly
more remote from the A lf Old than the other Through
Laibach Marburg and Steinamanger Trieste can be
brought into direct railway communi cation with Buda
Pest Why h umiliate ourselves by begging favours of
the enemy wh en we can fall back upon the loyalty of
our Austrian partners who have passed with us through
the terrible ordeal of war
Th us Tisza will argue
for the maintenance of the Dual System
The secession of the Southern Slavs however will
upset th at economic balance on whi ch 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 th e 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 wh ile fiscal co operation brought t h em mutual
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THE BALKANS
2 18
gain It was therefore in t h eir common interest to
compro mise on a joint tari ff wh ich gave each the
monopoly of the other s custom
Under the new conditions on the o th er hand th e
operation of the Dual System would place Hungary at
Austria s mercy So long as t h e 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
lish ed between Salzburg and Vienna on the one hand
and Agram on the other
After this Hungary s co -operation will no longer be
indispensable to Austria Austria will be able to turn
Hungary s flank at any moment by putting her industry
into direct communi cation with the Balkan area in
Hungary s rear along t his new l and route South of the
Drave Hungary will be side tracked as e f f ectively
by the completion of the Croatian railway system as
Serbia would have been by Baron A eren th al s abortive
railway schemes in the Sandjak
Th is would give Austria a crus hi ng tactical advantage
in the decennial readjustment of the Jo int Tarif f By
threatenin g to abandon th e existing partners h ip and
to contract a new one with the Southern Slavs i n stead
she could force the Magyars to unconditional surrender
If the threat were carried into e f fect 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 th e sea
Austria s economic life would be una ffected Hungary s
would be completely paralysed
Under these circumstances the equality of the two
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THE B AL KANS
2 20
bids us be loyal to th e A ustrian s wh o at this very mo m e n t
are taking advantage of our di fficulties to e xploit us
in cold blo o d Why sentimentalise over a partners hip
solely recommended by opportunism when loyalty
to it quench es t h e last g limmer of hope for our national
future
Let us S hake o ff our paralysis and help ourselves
The secession of th e South ern Slavs h as destroyed the
equilibrium between Austria an d our own country
but it has also cast th e South Slavonic Conf eder ation
as
an independent weight into the b alance The
equilibrium may still be righted if we can in cline this
weight to our side of th e s cales Let us take the
initiative out of Austria s hands by denouncin g the
Ausgleich ourselves and forestall her by securing
”
the partnership of the Sout h ern Slavs for Hungary
This hypotheti cal disputation between two politi cal
parties stands in e ff ect for the con test between national
fanaticism on the one h and and economi c necessity
on th e o ther Let us assume th at a short experience of
Dualism
under t h e new conditions converts the
1
Magyar nation to the Independence poin t of view
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Th e S lo vaks are th e o n ly im po rtan t el em en t in Hu n gary th at is
likely to clin g to th e Au strian co n n ectio n Their co u n try is lin ked by
th e Alf o ld : th eir d ialect is
n a tu re with P ozso n y, B u d a P est, an d
Geo grap hy an d n atio n
iden ti ca l with th at o f th e Tch ech s in Au stria
a l ity th u s d raw th em in o pp o site d ir ectio ns, an d th eir o n e h O p e o f
s
in so m e fo rm o f n atio n al d evo lu tio n
reco n ci lin g th e tw o facto rs lie
1
.
.
h in an u n b ro ken
b
"
If A
H
yp
D an u ian Un it
u n g ar
u stri a an d
art,
Th e Tch ech s Wi l
th e S o a s m u st sacri fice o n e acto r o r th e o th er
in icate th eir n atio n a it
sece in g
ro m
u n gar
u rg e th em to
en efit th e Tch ech s th em s e es
can ce in g
his o u
u stria
to
erm an s an d gi in g th em th e
th eir n u m erica in erio rity to th e u stri an
in th e eich srath at ienna, b u t it is o u t u
ro s ect o f a m a o rit
W h eth er th e S o a s
ou
b e in fl u en ce
this co nsi eratio n
Th eir
th e ha e
ro th er ho o
ith th e Tch ech s e ten s to an gu age a o n e
a co m m o n tra itio n , an d th ere are f ew in ication s at
n e er sh are
n ati o n a
co n scio u sn ess
Th e S o a s
i
a co m m o n
r esen t o f
o u t a n atio na
i e o f th eir
ro ab
e er to g eo gra h , an d wo r
Wi t
l vk
f
v d
A
T w ld b
l f
A
p p
j y
R
l v k w ld
b
dw
x
v
d
d
p
l
p b ly d f
p y
.
.
.
l y by
G
d by
d
l
k
d
V
f
lv by
v
d
l
.
H
ll
l
y
d bf l
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y
v
d
l v k w ll
l lf
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN
22 1
suppose that the Left supersedes Tisza in O fli ce
to carry out its rival programme what response will
its overtures receive from the Southern Slavs
The Southern Slavs will be torn between th e same
two motives as the Magyars t h emselves Th eir
national hatred of their nei ghbours 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 certa inly incline t hem to favour the Austrian suit
Their economic interest on the other hand will really
be identical with the interest of Hungary
At the first glance their new economic position might
appear invu lnerable : the territorial resettlement that
excluded Hungary from the sea will have assigned to
th e Southern Slavs an extensive Adriatic seaboard and
the possession of open ports is a guarantee of economic
independence Yet so long as the new Confederation
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 bulk O f the Dual
Mon archy : after the settlement the Austrian half O f
it will still present a nar rower but no less impenetrable
barrier to the united South Slavonic nation and the
game will be in Austria s hands more completely than
ever S h e may start by playing O ff the Confederation
against Hungary, but she will be free to reverse her
an d
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within a egen e ted Hu garian state Pro p hecy ho wever is
im possibl e
Th e rel ati n o f th e C ro ats to th e S erbs rem ain ed p recisely
parallel till as ecen tly as 1 9 1 2 an d with th is p reced en t befo r o u r eyes
we can o n ly say that if th e S lo v als are insp ir ed to id e tify th em selv es
with th e Tch ech natio n ality th ey m u st b e gran ted p erfect liberty to
carry th eir cho ice in to ef fect
o wn
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THE BAL KANS
222
tactics Wh enever she pleases and play off Hungary
ag ainst the Confederation The Southern Slavs will
discover like the Magyars that Austria is mistress of
th e i n itiative so long as they attempt to cope with her
single-handed By th e time the Hungarian In d ep en
dence Par ty makes its overtures the Federal Govern
ment will be ready to welcome them Experience will
have prepared both nations simultaneously to compose
the ir feud and adopt the alternative poli cy of co
operation
If the negotiations are crowned with success the
geographical structure of the
Danubian Un it
will have proved itself a stronger force than national
chauvinism The politi cal edifice of Dualism will
have collapsed under th e tempest yet the Tran sleith an ia
wh ich perished with the breaking of St Stephen s
Crown will have reasserted its econo m ic function in
a Z ollverein between two independent national states
The new Zo llverein will prove in turn that the national
and the economi c principles of articulation are not
fundamentally in compatible A reconciliation on this
basis betw een the Magyars and the Southern Slavs
T he
W ill win for both parties what they really want
Southern Slavs will enjoy national unity the Ma gyars
economic freedom The port of Fiume will become the
common property of t h e two states an d the railway that
links it with the A lf Old through Agram will be ad
ministered conjoin tly in the interes ts O f both
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Th e South-S lavoni c Ques tion has been the most
di ffi cult problem in the Balkans If we have found its
solution can we not apply our discovery to solve t h e
rest
The Tran sleith anian Zollverein will already
cover a wider area towards the South -East th an was
.
,
A
BAL KAN Z O LLVERE IN
22 ;
ever included in the frontiers of Hapsburg Trans
leith an ia
cannot its limits be extended still further
in the same dire ction
The friendships as well as the enmities of Serbia will
be inherited by the South Slavonic Federation and
since the Second Balkan War Serbia has maintained a
close understanding with Roumania and Greece T his
en ten te has
been inspired in part by the fear of
Bulgarian reprisals but chiefly by the discovery of
mutual economic interests of an enduring character
No better means of providing for these interests could
be found than the incorporation of Serbia s two friends
in the Z ollverein
(i ) Immediately after the settlement at Bukarest in
the autu mn of 1 9 1 3 Roumania began to negotiate with
Serbia for the construction of a railway bridge across
1
the Danube at Turnu Severin which was to lin k
the railway systems of the two countries Roumania
possesses a co ast line of her own on the Black Sea but
traffic thr ough th is door is condemned to make the
circu itous passage of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles
and m ay at any moment be brought to a complete
standstill by the caprice of the Ottoman Government
The railway conve n tion wit h Serbia was Roumania s
first S tep towards an open port on t h e Adriatic and
in the present stru ggle between Serbia and the Dual
Monarchy Roumanian as well as Sout h Slavonic interests
are at stake If Bosnia becomes Serbian soil and the
present Serbian railhead at U j itz e is connected through
the B osnian system with a port on the Adriatic the new
route will serve not only the basin of the Morava but
th e whole Wallachian plain beyond the bridge at Turn u
Severin
S ee M ap III
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THE BA L KANS
2 24
The freedom of this economic highway will be as
important to Roum ania as the freedom of the Fiume
Railway is to Hungary and it will be open to her to
secu re it by the same method Roumania will almost
certainly apply for members h ip in th e Transleith an ian
Zollverein and the two original members will consult
their best in terests by granting her request Roumania
wi ll win her outlet on the Adriatic Hungary and the
Southern Slavs wi ll gain in return free p assage over the
Roumanian railways to th e port of Costanza on the
1
Black Sea
(ii ) By another railway convention the Bukarest
settlement linked Serbia to Greece
Before the Balkan Wars Greece was practically in
the position of an island : for commun i cation with con
tin en tal Europe she was as dependent upon the sea as
Gr eat Britain and Ireland By 1 90 8 she had constructed
a railway of standard European gauge from Athens as
far North as Larissa and before 1 9 1 2 she had extended
it t hr ough the pass of Tempe to the point where the
G raeco Turkish frontier struck the coast of the ZEgean
The under taking had involved great engineering
di f ficulties and a proportionate expense yet just when
the arduous part of the task had been accomp lished and
no physical barrier remained between th e Greek railhead
and th e terminus of the European system at Salonika
the Ottoman Government cheated the Greek nation of
its object by refusing to allow the prolongation of the
line through Turkish territory
Hu n gary an d S erbia already en j o y f ee co m m u ni catio n with th e
B l ack S ea d o wn th e chann el o f th e D an u b e B y a series o f E u ro pean
1 883 —th e riv er was th r o wn o p en to free
treaties
1 8 78
1 87 1
1 85 6
Iro n Gates S ea
n avigatio n fro m its m o u th as f ar u pwar ds as th e
g o in g craft h o wev er cann o t ascen d ab o v e B rail a an d th e greater p art
of
this in tern atio n al sectio n is o n ly ava l abl e f o r b arges a n d rive
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2 26
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 E gean and received in return th e freedom
of the continental route as far as the Austro Hungarian
frontier Like Roumania she speculated on the
eventual removal of the A u stro Hungarian b arrier
in the present struggle the Southern Slavs are fightin g
th e Greeks battle as well as their own and any poli cy
that enables them to succeed in the ir endeavour must
commend itself equally to Greece If the South
Slavonic federation can only cope with Austria by
joining Hungary in a Z ollverein then it is the interes t
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 t h e
Zollverein to the Black Sea : the admission of Greece
will realise the
Trend Eastward
by bringing it
down to the lEgean
This twofold increase in its membership will have
expanded the Zollverein from its Tran sleith an ian
nucleus to the opposite li m i ts of the Bal kans Four
national units will already be included within its
boundary : will it succeed in federating the two that
remain
If 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 stan d out of a
combination to whi ch both Greece and the S outh
Slavonic Federation belong The country consis ts of a
strip of co ast fronting the heel of Italy across the narrowes t
part of the Adriatic and backed by a zone of barren
mount ains through which several passages lead East
ward into Macedonia and descend eventually to the
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A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN
N orthern
22 7
littoral of the lEgean This hinterland is
e ncircled by Greek and South Slavonic territory on all
sides
Albania has no history The principality was created
by the flat of the Powers ; 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 bound ary
commission
It was called into existence not because
it had the will to exist as a n ational state but simply
a s 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
w hile the native population develops from a barbarous
aggregate of clans into a civilised nationality
Meanwhile Albania has started life destitute Her
population is uneducated and her material wealth
unexploited Her only immediately available asset
is her geographical position She is mistress of two
ports which have recently won notoriety in Europe
1
The direct transit from Brindisi leads to the Southern
e xtremity of the Albanian coast
Here lies the moun
tain locked basin of Avlona whic h disputes with Spezzia
Bay the claim to be the finest harbour in the M ed iter
ran ean
but suff ers more than Spezzi a from the high
mountains that hem it in on the landward side In
s pite of the limestone barriers
Avlona is likely to
1
become the terminus of a narrow gauge railway
w hich will work its way up the valleys of the Vio sa
and D h ryn o s to Greek Yannina and thence descend to
Arta and Agrinion whence a line of narrow gauge ru ns
a lready to a point opposite Patras on the North coast of
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Th e cro ssin g o ccu pies m o st o f th e n igh t in an o rd in ary mail-steam er
S ee M ap
IV
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228
THE BALKANS
the Co rinthian Gulf This route will probably compete
with the Salonika Railway for the e xpress traffic
between Paris and Athens
Durazzo the other port lies half way up th e Albanian
coast line The transit from Italy is accordingly
longer and the harbour itself is wretch ed beyond
description The town lies huddled under the Southern
lee of a group of sand-dunes whic h are linked to the
mainland by a malarial waste of marshes and lagoons
The deposit of the swamp has silted up the sea far out
beyond th e actual shore line and the smallest steamer
can not approac h within half a mile of the jetty Durazzo
has not hin g to recommend it except its communications
with the interior which are as excellent as t hose of
Avlona are poor
Since the Roman period Durazzo has been the
1
termin us of a route whi ch ascends th e valley of the
S ku m b i to Elbassan penetrates by a pass to the vall ey
of t h e Black Drin crosses the stream at Struga where
it issues from the Lake of O h rid a and th en after
skirting the lake shore and p assing through O h rid a
itself breasts a second mountain range and descends
at last into the basin of Monastir
To compensate Serbia for the renunciation of terri
to rial sovereignty over Durazzo the Powers bestowed
on her the freedom of th e port and gave her the right
to construct a railway through Albanian territory
in order to connect this outlet with her own r ailway
system The route we have described will probably
be chosen for the final section of the new Serbian line
From Monastir a rai lway already leads South Eastward
through Greek territory to Salonika : it will only be
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Th e
S ee M ap
ro a , th eir
v ia E gn atia
1
d
Ro m an s im p ro ved th e track in to a m etall ed
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THE BALKANS
2 30
t h e other hand it infli cted consider able hard
ship upon the clans in h abitin g the mountain ous
coun try immediately West of the M eto ya who had
been accustomed to deal with the outer world through
Ipek J ako v a an d Prisren the three towns of the plain
and now found the m selves barred out from their only
available mar ket places by the new Serbian frontier
Th e Zollverein will eli min ate the new injustice without
restorin g the old Th e Serbo Albanian frontier will
remain where the commissioners drew it but since it
will no longer constitute a customs barrier the clansmen
from the Albanian side wi ll once more be able to visit
th e towns in the Serbian plain land as freely as when
plain and mountain were yoked together politically by
Ottoman m isrule
(b) The mountains of Northern Albania verge on
1
their other flank towards the Lake of S ko d ra
and half
th e clans descend to market at S ko d ra town whi ch li es
at the lake s South Eastern e xtre mi ty Geography has
destin ed S ko d ra to be a focu s of traf fic The lake
discharges itself past her walls into the channel of the
1
Boyana River and for the small steamers that ply upon
th e lake the Boyana is navigable from this po int to the
sea Th e sea going steamers employed in the coastal
trade find good po rts of call at Dulcigno a few miles
North of the B o yan a s mouth and at San Giovanni di
Medua a few miles South of it Both these harbours
(if they may be dignified by the name ) are connected
with S ko d ra across level country by good high roads
If all the S hores of the lake were Al banian no proble m
would arise but unfortunately its North Western
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S ku tari
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A bran ch thro wn o fl by th e u nited stream o f th e White an d Black
Drin after it h as wo u n d its way thro u gh th e Alb anian m o u n tain s an d
wo n a clear p assage to th e sea
S ee M ap IV
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A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN
23 1
extremity passes beyond the Albanian frontier and
penetrates deep into the mountain mass of Montene g ro
Physi cally Montenegro and Northern Albania con
stitu te a single region of which S ko d ra is the natural
capital : historically this homogeneous hinterland has
been partitioned between two hostile races which
can never merge the ms elves into one politi cal organism
An open door at S ko dra 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 S ko dra is not in doubt
The Southern Slavs extend to the head of the lake b u t
an Albanian population dwells along its lower shores
and S ko dr a itself at its opposite extremity is a purely
Albanian ci ty The struggle for S ko dra is the history
o f Montenegrin encroachment upon a lien territory
The Montenegrins have been forced in this direc
tion thr ough th e fault of Austria Hungar y which h as
d ebarred them from their lawful outlet to t h e 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 th ey
would never have tried to reach it through S ko d ra by
subjugating an Albanian population almost as numerous
as their own
In 1 878 t h e Congress of Berlin assigned to
Montenegro the harbour of Antivari beyond th e
e xtremity of the Austrian littoral Antivari is not a
convenient port for the Black Mountain
A high range
of hills blocks t h e way thither from the head of S ko d ra
Lake yet th e Montenegrins have striven with success to
overcome this p hysical d isadvantage by the construction
of a mountain railway across the barrier ? Au stria
It starts fro m Virp azar o n th e l ak e sho re
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TH E BALKANS
2 22
Hun gary however grudged her South Slavonic neigh
bour even this h ard won e conomic liberty By a
corollary to th e Berlin Treaty she secured for herself
1
po wers of control over the traffic of th e new Montene
grin port and to win an untrammeled outlet Montenegro
was forced to go still further afield After the Berlin
settlement had produced a revulsion of feeling in Great
Britain Gladstone succeeded D israeli in o ffi ce to undo
as far as possible what Disraeli had done and one o f
1
his first acts was to ext ort the transference of Dulci gn o
from Turkey to Montenegro
Gladstone s gift was more b en eficen t in its intention
than in its result
The only practicable route between
th e Montenegrin h interland and Dulcigno lies through
So long therefore as S ko d ra remained in
S ko d ra
other hands Dulcigno was of no economic value to its
new masters whi le S ko d ra was deprived of its natural
port In 1 91 3 the Balkan War gave Montene g ro th e
opportunity to annex S ko d ra as well but when the
fortress capitulated the Powers rightly intervened and
the inclusion of S ko d ra in the new Albanian principality
put an end for ever to Montenegrin hopes
S ko d ra and Dulcigno can now never be reunited under
Montenegrin sovereignty
the logical alternative is
their reunion Within Albania Baulked of S ko dra
Montene gro wi ll lose nothing by the retrocession of
S ko d ra s port and her whole title to Dulcigno will fall
to the ground as soon as Cattaro fjord and the Austrian
littoral on either side of it have passed into her possession
Yet no amount of compensation on the opposite fla nk
will induce Montenegro to yield territory to A lbania
Without some equivalent return on Alban ia s part
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Wai ved by B aro n A eren th al in 1 909 as p art co m p ens atio n f o r th e
ann e a ti o n o f
x
Bo snia
1
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1 880
.
TH E BALKANS
2 34
geograp hi cal point of view Epirus and Greece are
inseparable
Th e Powers took their stand upo n nationality
”
The country they argued
may be Greek but the
”
people are Albani an They speak an Albanian dialect
This argu ment betrays a misconception of what
nationality me ans Nationality is not an objective
attribute but a state of cons ciousness whi ch depends for
its stimulus upon a certain degree of civilisation We
ha ve seen that among the majority of the population
included with in the principality s frontiers it is con
they have no group cons ciousnes s
spicu o u sly abs ent :
beyond the clan The Epiro ts alone are civilised enough
to possess it and their civilisation and nationality are
both drawn from the same external source
The significant fact about the Epiro t is n o t that h e
speaks Albanian at home but that he learns Greek at
1
school and finds in his adopted language a passport
to a wider life
The Epiro ts are th e only Albanians
who can boast a history and their hi story consists in
the castin g 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 : th e Ep iro ts alone followed the
e xample of their Greek neighbours and remained loyal
In the eighteenth century
to t h e Orthodox Church
the Orthodox ecclesiastical tradition developed into a
national Greek renaissance the Epiro ts were fir ed by
the new movement and welcomed the Greek school
that grew up beside t h e Greek church They looked
forward as eagerly as the Greek of Macedonia or
th e
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v ll
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Th e i a ge sch oo s in E
w h o m a e th eir o rtu n es in
exan ria
1
Al
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f
piru s have m ostly b een en do wed by n atives
Gr k o m m erc1al en tres l ke S m yrn a an d
ee
c
c
i
A BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN
235
M itylin i to the day when nationality should find
expression in political liberation an d unification When
Yan nina fell in the spring of 1 9 1 3 the clay seemed to
have dawned The Powers thrust them into the outer
darkness of the Albanian principali ty just when t h ey
were on the threshold of the promised land
The Epiro ts 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 1 9 1 3 they r aised a
national mi litia 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 Gr ee ce she must abandon a claim wh ich
she cannot enforce Th e Epiro ts have proved tha t
common language is in th is case no national bond by
ta king up arms for t h e rig h t to merge t h emselves in a
nation of other speech
When she h as solved the frontier problems of the
M eto ya Dulcigno and Epirus Albania will be free
to face the task of internal construction
The new
government will here find the exercise of its authority
hampered by the very lack of that national consciousness
the presence of which in Epirus has made it altogether
impossible Its writ will run where the Ottoman
sultan s ran in the ports and the plains but if
it is wise it will follow the Ottoman policy of leaving
th e mountains to thems elves
To the clansman it will
make no diff erence that the government is national
he will still view its action simply as a menace to the
liberty of the clan and he will feel no greater obligation
to pay taxes to an
Albanian exchequer at Durazzo
than to a P asha who collected them at the same
konak
for transmission to Constantinople The Albanian
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2 36
TH E BALKANS
revenues will depend not upon the contributions of the
Albanian population but upon the customs levied on
th e trade of Avlona and Durazzo
that trade in turn will
depend upon the admission of the principali ty to the
Balkan Zollverein
(iv ) The Zollverein wil l not be complete until it has
secured the adhesion of Bulgaria
Since th e Balkan Wars the Bulgarian territory has
1
extended to th e [Egean as well as to the Black S ea
and the Bulgarian frontier thus blocks every land route
from the remainder of the Balkan area to the Black Sea
Straits and to the Anato lian contin ent that lies beyond ?
The Zoll verein would suff er grave i nj ury from Bulgaria s
economic hostility and in her present mood Bulg aria
is prepared to inflict as much injury upon her neighbours
as she can
The latest liberated of all the Balkan nations she
devoted herself with fierce singleness of purpo se to the
realisation of her national destiny In the Balkan W ars
she staked all to win all and issued t h e loser For
her misfort u ne she has chiefly herse lf to blame By
her murderous attack upon the Serbian outposts s h e
deliberately provoked the disastrous struggle with her
alli es and h er tactless diplomacy was responsible for
the intervention of Roumania Yet the victors sacrifi ced
the righ teousness of their cause to a most unrighteous
e xploitation of their victory ? In the division of spoils
at Bukarest they stripped Bulgaria naked and unless
S ee M ap IV
Th e m os t im po rtan t o f th ese ro u tes is th e
Orien ta l Rai lway
whi ch strikes Eastwar d o t o f th e Mo rava v all ey at Nish en ters
B u lg arian territo ry j ust b eyo n d P iro t an d p ass es thr o gh S o fia Phi lip
po po lis an d Adri an o ple to S tam bo u l Th e lin e is con tin u ed o n th e
o ppo site sid e o f th e Bo sp h o ru s by th e An ato li an Rail way w hich starts
from S tam bo u l s Asiatic su bur bs
B u lgaria is th e Germ an y o f th e B alkans th e Treaty o f B u k arest is
a warn in g to th e Allies
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THE BALKANS
2 38
dominantly Greek and the hinterland predominantly
Bul g ar but there are large areas where the two n atio n ali
ti es are inextricably intermin gled village alte rnating
with villag e in the same valley
It is impossible to draw a politi cal frontier in s trict
ac cord with the racial distribution If Bulgaria claim ed
every Bulgar vill age it would not be fe asible to sift
out th e Greek enclaves and the whole debatable zone
down to the coast line itself would be drawn within
the Bulgarian frontier : on th e other hand if Gree ce
ass erted her title to every patch of Gr eek population
she would have to incorporate not only the whole coast
but extensive portions of the Bulg ar hin terlan d
It is clear that the problem can o nl y be solved by a
compromise and durin g the negotiations whi ch were
interrupted by the Second Bal kan War Ven ezelo s th e
Greek premier worked for the partition of the zone in to
two sections
Th e Eastward or Thracian section was to be cc
extensive with the lower basin of th e River Mari tza :
here he proposed to resign the co ast as well as the
The Westward or Macedonian
hi nterland to Bulgaria
section was to include th e lower cours es of th e Vardar
an d of the Struma and here he claimed for Gree ce a
s u fi cien t hin terland to cover the coast
When the negotiations were superseded by war and
vi ctory put the initiative entirely into Ven ezelo s hands
he interpreted his principle in the sense most favourable
to Greece and extended hi s Western se ction
as
f ar as the River Mesta ?
From the racial point of view the settlement was still
a compromise If Ven ezelo s an nexed to Greece the
Bulgar hinterland West of the Mesta he honourably
S ee M ap IV
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BALKAN ZOLLVERE IN
A
2 39
abandoned to Bulgaria the Greek littoral between the
Mesta and the Maritza Th e Bulgars demand a modi
ficatio n of the present frontier on economic and not on
The natural route from Sofia their
n ational grounds
to the sea follows the valley of the Struma
capital
do wn to the port of Kavala a short distance East O f its
mouth The Tre aty of Bukarest left the greater part
of this route in Bulgaria s hands but barred her out
f rom its terminus
Bulgaria repudiates reconciliation
with Greece till this economic wrong is righted Greece
refuses to satisfy Bulgaria at the cost of territorial cessions
which would violate V en eZelo s racial settlement
Bulgaria s entrance into the Zollverein is thus the
o nly means of composing the quarrel for it will satisfy
Bulgaria s economic need without necessitating the
change of political frontier Kavala like Salonika
w ill remain under Greek government but Bulgaria
will be as free to make commercial use of it as Serbia is
f ree to trade through Salonika
In this instance the benefits of the Zollverein accrue
to Bulgaria and by refusing to enter it on t h is account
s h e 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 diff erence is with Serbia and this time the parts
are reversed Bulgaria claims territory on national
grounds Serbia refuses to cede it for economic re asons
The Vardar rises on South Slavonic soil and Uskub
at t h e junction of its h ead waters is as truly a Serb
city as Nish or Belgrade Below Uskub however the
whole basin of th e river is occupied by a Bulgar p o pu la
tion which extends as far Westward as the Albanian
frontier The nationality of this population is not in
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THE BALKANS
2 40
doubt
as Bulgar in sympathy as in dialect
and it regards the Serbian regime as a foreign domina
tion Serbia gave witness against herself in the treaty
she concluded with Bulgaria in the summer of 1 9 1 2
before their joint declaration of war against Turkey
She admitted Bulgaria s exclusive right to the region
South of Uskub and even left the allotment of Uskub
itself to the arbitration of the Tsar
By e xtendin g her sovereignty down the Vardar from
Uskub to Y evyeli Serbia committed a crime against
the principle of nationality whic h can only be atoned
by the retrocession of the whole territory in question
to B ulgaria ? Before the outbreak of the present war
such a suggestion would have been Utopian : without
compensation Serbia would never have consented to
disgorge the greater part of the spoils for whi ch she had
fought two desperate campaigns If Bosnia falls to
her at the impending settlement and her str ength is
further in creased by the incorporation of the Triune
Kingdom in a South Slavonic Federation she will be
in a position to do full justice to Bulgaria on her Mace
do mian frontier without being crippled by the territorial
loss Should she still persist in her refusal she would
it
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1
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in th e S er ian co n ten tio n th at th e S lav o m c
ial ect s o en in en tra Mace o n ia is a ariet o f
S o u th -S a o n ic
in th e n arro er sense
It is n o t e en an in term e iate in
et een
an d
B u g ar Th e two angu ag es are sh ar
S o u th- S a o nic
i f er en tiate
ro m o n e an o th er, an d th er e can b e n o am bigu it in th e
ato is u n er o n e h ea
c assifi catio n o f th e Mace o nian
o r th e o th er
Lin gu istica l , th e Mace o nian S avs are as u nm ista a e B u gars as
th e S a s o f S o fia o r P e n a, an d th e B u garian
ro agan a o f th e ast
ro th erho o
twen ty years h as ro use in th em a een sen se o f n a tio na
th th e s ea ers o f th eir to n gu e wh o i e e o n th e B u g arian ro n tier
1
h er tr eat in th e S u m m er o f
Th e m o ra o li gatio n co n tracte
’
B u garia 5 treach ero us attac in th e S u m m er o f
1 9 1 2 was can cel e
1 91 3
O n th e o th er han , if sh e secu res h er n ati o na u nit as a resu t
ig atio n to res ect th e rin cip e o f n atio nality
o f th e resen t war, h er o
’
in B u garia s case Wi b e ro o rtio n ate in crease
1
d
Th ere is n o
p k
w
lv
df
df
l
lv
tru th
C
l
p
d
.
ly
p k
l b
l d by
.
l
ll
l
d
lv
d
d
l
d
bl
p p
v
v
y
l
.
p
l
d
lv
l kb w
y
d
d
k bl
l
l
p p
d
k
lb
lv b y d
l
f
d by
y
k
l
y
p
p
l
ly
d
.
ply
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l
d
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l
THE BALKANS
2 42
Vi layets
of Kossovo and Monastir in an Easterly
direction til l it strikes the River Vardar at a point
below the junction of the Pein ya tributary but above the
town of Veles ?
After crossing the Vardar it might
run along the river bank u p -stream and continue its
course up the Left bank of the Pein ya to a point due
East of Uskub Here it might turn E astward once more
and mount the watershed between the Pein ya and
B regaln itza valleys till it reaches the sum m it of Mount
Osigo v a on the present Serbo Bulgarian frontier
This line would leave to the South Slavoni c Federa
tion bot h Uskub itself and the railways that connect
Uskub with Mitrovitza Nish and the Egri Palan ka
1
Pass to Bulgaria it would assign O h rid a the basin of
Monastir the mi ddle course of th e Vardar and all the
1
countr y between the Vardar and the Struma
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We have now discussed the economic federation of
Hungary and the Southern Slavs
th e six Balka n units
Roumania and Greece Albania and Bulgaria We
can abstract our conclu sion in the followin g formula
The political deadlock between national aspirations
in the Balkan area is due to economic individualism
e conomic collectivism is the necessary condition of
”
national self realisation
B etter kn o wn u n d er its Tu r kish nam e as K o p ru l u
bridg e p lace
Th e cap ita l o f th e B u l garian E m pir e in th e el ev en th cen tu ry A D
To begi n with B u l garia Wi ll d epen d f o r rail way co m m uni catio n
with h er n ew territo ry u po n th e S erbian lin e thr o u gh Usku b an d th e
Gr eek lin e thro u gh S al o ni ka b u t S h e will certa n ly fo llo w u p h e
n cor po r atio n in th e Z o llv erein an d th e rect ficatio n o f h er fro n tier by
th e con stru ctio n o f two n ew rail ways
( i ) Fro m Kosten di l d o wn th e vall ey o f th e S tru m a to S erres which
will give h er a co nn ectio n alo ng th e Greek rai lway system thro u gh
Dram a to K avala
(ii ) Fro m Ko sten di l to Ko d j an a in th e B regaln itz a val l ey o ver a
pass S o u th o f Mou n t O sigo v a an d th en ce thro u gh Ish tip Veles an d
Prilep to Mo nas tir Thi s Wi ll give h er an in d ep en d en t co n n ectio n with
h er Macedon ian terri to ries
,
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A
BALKAN ZOLLVEREIN
2 43
In the environment of a Zollverein Hungary and
the 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 reconstruction on a
national basis The Zollverein seems to be the in stru
ment that will eradi cate th e seeds of war from the
B alkans so far as those seeds are sown by the Balkan
nationalities themselves
Our di scussion however has also shown us that the
Balkan peoples are only responsible in a secondary
degree They have erred in leaving their field unfenced
th eir stronger neighbours are the enemy that has
scattered the tares
If we recall the outstanding factors that mi litate
against Balkan peace we S hall find the root of them all
in the machinations of the Great Powers If Serbia
has fallen o u t 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 D o b ru d j a it is because Russia
in 1 878 swindled Roumania out of her coast line North
of the Danube If A lbania is still likely to be convulsed
within When she has settled her differences with her
two neighbours it is because Austro H u ngarian pro
pagan d a has incited t h e Catholic clansmen to make
th e task of the Moslem government impossible
By th e
building u 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
The Balkan are a has been a menace to peace because
it has been a no man s land an arena flung open to the
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THE BALKANS
2 44
strong nations of Europe to tempt them to turn aside
from the strait and narrow way of so cial advance and
tear each other in pieces for the proprietorsh ip of a
wilderness
Once Germany has been what the B alkans are now
In the seventeenth century s h e was d ismembered by
”
the
T hirty Years War
an d
in the eigh teenth
century the Powers fought over her carcase as they h ave
been fighting over the Balkans during the century that
has j u st expired : Sweden drew the sword to hold
Pomerania France to seize the Left bank of the Rhin e
Bismarck did one good service to peace By rais ing
Germany from the de ad and making her the peer of the
Powers instead of their prey he closed the German
arena to the confli cts of Europe
No Bismarck will arise to weld together the Bal kan
S tates and enrol them in the front rank of t h e com
b ata n ts
that possibility need cost us n either hope nor
fear In spiration wi ll come not from Central Europe
the shadow from which the Balkans are being delivered
by the present war but from America the land of
promise to which Balkan i m migrants are finding their
way in ever increasing numbers
O n the American continent during the last century
th e Latin Republics h ave lived th rough their
Balkan
p h ase without disturbing the peace of the world at
l arge because th e United States have held the ring
and have prevented the big dogs outside from taking
p art in the little dogs scu ffle Th e Balkan situation
in Europe calls even more urgently for a Monroe
”
Doctrine an d if it is to be dir ected impartially against
all the European Powers
its sanction must proceed
f rom the Balkan peoples themselves
In co operative movements it is the first step that
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TR IE STE A N D ITALY
2 46
CHAP TER V
TRIES TE A N D ITAL Y
W E are now in a position to solve the problem raised at
th e close of our chapter on Germany
We had con
cluded that if Germany were beaten by the Allies in th e
present war she would have to relinquish her subject
provin ces of a lien 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 thi s 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 Austr ian point of View by making clear to ourselves
th e internal situation of the D u al Monarchy
Our
survey showed that th e Austrian Germans would never
amalgamate with the German national state unless th e
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 standi ng alone
We then proceeded to discuss the Hapsburg Empire s
strength and weakn es s We found that the Southern
Slav question was the determining factor in its fate
i f 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 th e
v e ry victo ry of the Alli es which would make the in
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TRIESTE A N D ITALY
2 47
corporation of the German Austrians in the German
Empire desirable from the general point of view would
incidentally dissolve the Dual Monarchy by solving the
Southern Slav question on just these lines and would
thereby indirectly 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 Zollverein or Entente
built 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 defin e what territories and p o pu la
tions this
New Austrian
member of the
New
Germany will include Large portions of the present
Hapsburg dominions have already been eliminated from
consideration We have prophesied that all Galicia
beyond the Carpathians will gravitate under some
status or other to the Russian Empire and all Trans
”
leith an ia
both the territories of the Crown of St
Stephen and the outlying Austrian province O f
Dalmatia 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
b loc
It is hardly conceivable that it should do so
for there are several most important non German
elements still entangled in it T he German population
in Austria like the Magyar population East of it in
Hungary ceases on the North bank of the Drave and
Slavonic speech reigns South of the river as far as t h e
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TRIES T E AND ITALY
2 48
sea ; b u t the situation is not so simple here as in
Croatia The Croats we saw have been atrociously
t reated by the Magyars and moreover they are o nl y
one fragment of a larger homogeneous population the
Southern Slavs with whose other sections 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
tin ctly di f ferent from Southern Slav ?
They have been
well treated by their German masters ; and what is
more importan t still they have no independent tradi
tion or civilisation of their own Laibach the chief
1
town of Kr ain has a th oroughly German character and
Gottschee in the extreme South of the country is a
genuine enclave of German population
If Krain were a unit by itself it would probably
vote for continued union with the Germans across the
Drave with whom p o litics have knit the distr ict for
five centuries But unfortunately Krain is inseparably
linked by geography with the province of the Kiisten
land
and the Slovene population neglecting the
artificial boundary between the two administr ative
districts spreads evenly to the sea This coast how
ever h as had a very different history from its hinter
land Here too the Slovene has adopted civilis ation
second hand ; but it has come to him from the opposite
quarter and the ports have taken a completely Italian
colour Trieste in deed was an early acquisition of the
1
Hapsburgs but the Western half of Istria belonged to
Venice till the e xtinction of her independence in 1 797
and did not pass defini tively to Austria till 1 8 1 4 More
They n u m b ered
at th e censu s o f 1 900
"
S ee M ap
Th e S lavo nic f or M arch I talianised as C arnio la
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It h as
b elo n ged to th em sin ce 1 3 82 A D
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TRIESTE A N D ITALY
2 50
becoming a world po rt Trieste has vastly increased her
size like other European cities by drawin g in to herself
th e rural population from a wide zone of attraction
Modern urban concentration takes no account of
medi e val race divisions an d the nucleus of Italian
Triestini has been alloyed with a mass O f Slovene
immigrants who have come to stay Encouraged by
the Austrian government the new Slovene element has
been struggling for some years with the Italian to s hare
th e control of the municipal ity and seems likely to make
good its claim at any rate Trieste is no longer a purely
Italian ci ty?
This brings us to th e negative conclusion that th e
”
Slovene Unit must not be incorporated politically
eith er in Italy or in the new Germ any Laibach and
Go ttschee would veto Italian annexation Parenzo and
Abbazia Germ n the Slovenes W h o are making th em
a
selves a power in Trieste would veto both It remains
th at it shoul d eith er enter th e South ern Slav United
Sta tes
or become an in dependent political un it
guaranteed by Europe
The latter alternative is undesirable Tin y states in
occupation of importan t and in tensely coveted economic
assets are not likely to possess th e resources for ad
ministering th ese assets o n the in creasin gly large scale
to which modern life is tending or for defending them
against the aggression of bigger organisms that think
they could use th e opportunity be tter But it would be
still worse to force a political destiny upon a population of
this size against its will
It is probable however th at
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Th e to ta
l p o p latio n o f Trieste is
I talian s
S l o v en es
G erm ans
u
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l d
bo u t
in c u in g a
TRIESTE AND ITALY
2 51
the general sense of the various elements as expressed
in the plebiscite will reveal itself in favour of federating
the unit with the Southern Slavs as a third member of
their Union Guaran teed independence would hardly
relieve the Itali an and German minorities from the
alternative fear of being engulfed respectively in th e
German and Italian national state and such a po ssi
b ility would be far more repugnant to them than the
prospect of loose co O peration more or less on their
own terms with a Slavonic nationality The Slovene
majority has recently been roused to active conscious
ness by that wave of national enthusiasm which the
Serbian victories over Turkey and Bulgaria sent v ib rat
in g through the Southern Slavs
While a few years
ago it would have followed in the Italians or the
Germ ans wake it Will now take an initiative of its o wn
Nevertheless wh ere 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 clear We saw th at the Dual
Monarchy in its present shape as a political structure
was a negation of natural grouping imposed upon more
than half its total population 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 tha t it had a
cogent ra ison d etre as an economic organisation The
raw production of th e South East th e manufactu re of
the North-West an d th e sea traffi c up th e Adriatic
coast are complementary to each other ; an d our
political reorganisation so far from dislocatin g this
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TRIESTE A N D ITALY
2 52
economi c relation wi ll actually emphasise it on a
grander s cale A u stria Hungary as a political group
will perhaps have disappeared ; but t h e e conomic inter
play between its se ctions will thereby extend itself to
the whole Balkan Zollverein on the one hand and to
the Whole rehabilitated German Empire on the other
and the port of Trieste will still remain the node of
this larger rhyth m
Trieste has a great future before her and i t is very
i mportant for the prosperi ty of Europe to keep u h
broken all her economic lin ks Whatever its politi cal
disposition th e state of Slovenia must remain an
open market where the n ew Germany and the Balkan
Zollverein can meet that is it must have free trade
with both at once But there is no econo m ic connection
between Trieste and Italy Italian manufactures are
developin g along th e Northern rim of the Po basin where
th ey can avail themselves of Alpine water power ; but
the port of Lombardy is Genoa on the Riviera coast
Italian ind u stry faces South West and belongs to an
econo mi c sphere in which the centre of gravity verges
towards the Mediterranean and not towards the
Adriati c
This is perhaps the strongest reason of all for not put
ting Trieste into Italy s hands Even if th e exclusion
of the Slovene territory from the Italian tari f f wall were
guaranteed as a con d ition of its incorporation within
her political frontier she could hardly fail to use her
political control to deflect Triestine trade in her o wn
in terest To abandon her claim to Trieste will be a
grievous disappointment to her ; but she will receive
compensation in other directions
(i ) Though S h e must throw no covetous glance upon
Canton Ticino which is Swiss in soul yet further East
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TR IES T E AND ITALY
2 54
l eave the Eastern coast of this sea in less formida ble
hands
At least two of the Austrian naval bases Sebe n ico
and Cattaro will fall to the inheritance of the Southern
Slav Union which 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 which
juts out into the sea on the tip of Istria and menaces a
large stretch of Italian coast includin g 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 gu aranteed autonomy the natural corolla ry to the
gran t of such a status would be the razing of all f o rtifica
tions within the guaranteed area
But even should
Slovenia elect to throw in her lot with th e Southern
Slavs Italy would still be quite j ustified in insisting
upon the dismantling of P0 12 as the condition of her
consen t to the loss of Trieste while the other parties
to the conference could not deny her such a lo gical
compensation
While Pola controls the bottom of the Adriatic bottle
1
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 regime its strategical possibilities were never
exploited but in the hands of an e ffi cient naval power it
could be converted into a posi tion strong enough to
seal up the Adriatic and it is obvious that it would
t hreaten 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 1 9 1 3 during the
S ee M ap IV
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TRIESTE A N D ITALY
255
o r e of the Balkan War brought Greek ar mies into
the neighbourhood The Greek government politicly
refrained from proceeding to the occupation of Avlona
itself but Italy s susceptibility with reg ard to the fate
of the town was so extreme that, as we h ave 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 b e
maintained against the will of both but since Avlona
lies beyond the Epiro t border and her Moslem Albanian
population will under no circumstances incorporate
itself in the Greek national state there is no reason why
any step the Epiro ts may take with regard to their own
destiny should involve the permanent presence of Italy
1
at Avlona a state of things that would virtually reduce
Albania to an Italian province and would hopelessly
compro m is e the Monroe doctrine which we f o rm u
lated for the whole Balkan region as one of the necessary
s afeguards of European peace Italy s interests can be
completely satisfied by another alternative the perpetual
neutralisation of Avlona under a guarantee similar to
that we h ave proposed in the case of Pola cont ainin g
the following provisions
(a) Avlona shall always remain part of Albania
(b ) It shall never be fortified either by Alb ania
herself or by any larger political group with a unified
military organisation of which Albania may at any time
hereafter become a member
c u s
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I ly v
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p d Avlo na itself an d
l d th at co m m an ds
In No em er 1 9 1 4 ta
irtu al
o ccu ie
o rm a
ann o un ce h er o ccu p atio n o f S asen o , th e is an
th e en trance to th e B ay
1
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TRIES TE AND ITALY
2 56
Th e g eneral eff ect t h en of th ese various proposals
will be to leave Italy th e control of the Adriatic by th e
disarmament of its whole Eastern coast Sympathisers
wit h Italy will probably declare that this is after all a
negative gain and hint th at a great power like Italy
cannot in th e t e-settlement of Europe be treated in so
cavalier a fashion To this we would reply that we h ave
taken our lead from Italy s own policy Her decisive
adoption of neutrality at the begi nning of the present
war proved that she herse lf realised what was already
patent from the facts that s h e had no vital interests at
stake on th e European continent
If the ultimate reunion of Trieste had been to h er not
merely a ch erished 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 ins ist on the assig nment to her of Trieste
by the conference that will meet after the war she would
deliberately be involving herself in intimate relations
with Centr al and South Eastern Europe : every p hase
in the policy of the great German and Balkan groups
would th enceforth seriously a ff ect her and she might
finally bring down upon her h ead the combined for ce
of th e two groups in a concerted e ff ort to oust h er ag ain
from th e poss ession of a port which thou gh of no
econo mi c interest to herself would be the centre in whic h
their o wn respective interests met and coincided
The relief from naval competition in the Adriati c
would on the contrary be a very positive advantage to
her Instead of the pro m issory notes of continental
ambitions it would yield her the immediate gain of
m i llions of lire struck o ff from her annual bud g et for
naval construction and enable h er at once to reduce
h er naval estimates and yet spar e greater force th an
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2 58
TRIESTE A N D ITALY
ory on the one h and nor th rough Italian on th e other
an d th ere are two e xistin g lines of railway along wh ich
such communication can be e ffected
S u d b ah n
from Vie n na that skirts the
(i ) The
Eastern flank of the Alps passes trough the heart of
Krain at Laibach and proceeds thence to Trieste whi ch
it th us links to an industrial hinterland towards th e
North East in Bohe m ia and Moravia
(ii ) Th e Tauern Railway only opened in 1 909 which
has yielded T rieste a new hinterland in Southern
Germany by giving her a direct Northward conne ction
through the Alps themselves
This line in its Southern section s kirts the present
Itali an frontier keeping just outside Italian territory
Starting from Trieste it runs to G Orz on the East
b ank 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
Karawa n ken mountains by another tunnel to emerge
on the Drave at Villach Hence the Taue rn tunnel
the biggest engineering feat on the line carries it
through the main chain of the Alps into the Danube
lowlands whi ch 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 G Orz Where the population is Italian in nation
ality and which possesses a sentimental importance as
contain ing 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-Western extension of Slovenia in turn is
limited by the trunk line from Vienna to Italy which
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TRIESTE AND ITALY
2 59
passes by Leoben up the valley of the Mur crosses into
the Drave valley at Villach and proceeds thence into
the Tagliamento basin at Tarvis It is equally clear
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 predo m inantly German the towns such as
Klagenfurt and M arburg being completely German in
character and the whole valley forms an indivisible
geographical unity which is linked by its railway con
the German mass towards the North
n ectio n s with
rather th an with the Slovene mass towards the South
Slovenia must therefore abandon her frontiersmen in
the Drave valley to Austria and accep t 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 South ern boundary
of Karin th ia along the Karawanken mountains till it
reaches the point where the Karin th ian boundary turns
North Here it should part from the latter and con
tin u e 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
Leonh ard to Austria Thence it should turn South
East run along the watershed between the Sann and
Dran n systems over the Cilli Marburg railway tunnel
to the Wo tsch e mountains and then follow their summit
till it hits the frontier of Croatia
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2 60
TRIES T E AND I TALY
This is a roug h attempt to sift Slovene from Ger m an
along a line correspondin g wi th geograph ical stru e
ture and it will succeed appro ximately in s hakin g
German Austria free from her Slavonic accretions on
the Southern side But the Austria that is left though
now a compact geographical unit has a last an d most
bitter national problem buried in her h eart s h e h as still
to settle her relations with the Tch ech s f
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to Mu n i ch
-tc
Ml la
0 B o lo g n a
n
P
R O P O S E D FR O N T I E R S
P
R I N C I P A L R A I L W AY S
I TA L I
AN
E I S TI N G FR O N I E R S
TO B E A A DO E
T
X
S
B
A
L TI N S
THE TRENI TN O
.
N
N
D
TCHECH AND GERMAN
2 62
Western Ch ristendom In th e fourteenth century its
ruler Charles of Luxembourg attained the (by t his time
shadowy) dign ity of Holy Roman Emperor and his
Slavoni c capital Prag became for a generation the
politi cal focus of Central Europe
The cosmopolitan un iversity of Prag founded in 1 3 48
and organised in four nations which was Charl es
most endurin g legacy to th e country linked it still
closer to the great world and wandering stu dents from
Englan d sowed seeds of Wycl if s ideas from which
spran g two leaders of European impo rtan ce Jo hn Huss
and Jerome of Prag th e fore runne rs of the Reforma
tion They were both burnt at the Council of Co n stan z
in 1 4 1 5 but their followers took up arms for the rights
of th e Laity again st th e Clergy an d repelled th e crusades
of all Catholic Europe
In this democratic uprisin g half a universal religiou s
movement half a lo cal revolt of th e peas an t again st h is
lord th e Tch ech nation found itself and defied th e
world But the glory of th e Hussites was brief Th ey
were ruined not by th e power of the Roman Ch urch
but by th e bittern ess of their own inte rnal factions In
1 43 6 th e moderate
Utraquists crushed the fanatical
”
Taborites who were the really vital element in th e
movement and pro ceeded to make a concordat with
Rome in which th ey abandoned their actually achieved
religious independence in return for a formal acknow
ledgment of th e Laity s right to communica te in both
kinds th e empty claim ensh rined in th e party s title
The star of Huss had set before Luth er s sun rose in
th e seventeenth century while the Dutch were assert
ing their national independence against th e Hapsburg
dyn asty th e Tch ech s fell under its autocratic rule and
have never e xtrica ted th emselves sin ce ; but tradition
.
,
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’
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TCHECH AND GERMAN
2 63
lived on and fed the flame of na tionalism which th e
nineteenth century kindled in the Tch ech s as in all oth er
European populations to a white heat
No settlement of Austria is worth considering th at
does not satisfy the Tch ech s aspirations but their
claims are likely to be extravagant At first th ey will
probably demand the erection of the two provinces
Bo h emia an d Moravia where th eyf o rm the preponderant
element of th e rural population and the substratum
of th e urban masses into a completely independent
It would be a close parallel to this claim
n ational state
if th e Iris h Nationalists proposed the complete separa
tion of th e whole island from th e Bri tis h Empire and
th e absolute supremacy in the new state of the Catholic
popula tion ; except th at to th e Tch ech s programme
th e objections are graver still
(i ) In whole districts along th e borde rs th ere is a solid
German population and a German element h as estab
lish ed itself permanently in most of the towns especially
in th e more accessible province of Moravia ? In th e
streets of Prag riots between Tch ech and German mobs
often lead to bloodshed ; and the present war in which
th e Austrian government has forced th e Tch ech con
s cripts to figh t against their Slavonic brethren the
Russians and s hot t h em down when th ey h esitated to
obey will h ave immeasurably embittered the race
h atred This German minority cannot be abandoned
to Tch ech nationalism enjoying power for th e first
time an d schooled as a victim in Austrian meth ods of
using it
,
,
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,
’
,
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’
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.
,
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,
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.
Tchech s
.
(7 1
w
To tal po p o f bo th
.
Germans
.
TCHECH AND GERMAN
2 64
(ii ) Bo h emia and Moravia are great m anufacturing
an d min ing districts depending for their prosperity on
good comm unication with markets ? If they separate
thems elves politi cally from th e New German y they put
it in h er power to build a tariff wall against them which
will cut th em O ff from the outer world The in terior of
th e Bo h emian bastion is drained by th e upper system of
th e Elbe and its trade is tending more and more to flow
down with th e rive r to Ham burg through th e gorge
where it breaks th e Erz-gebirge while the arteries of
Moravia focus at Vienn a wh ere the Austrian trunk line
starts for Trieste In both directions exit and entrance
can only be made th rough German territo ry
(iii ) Th e Tch ech s possess a th ird door to th e East
of wh ich Germany does not own the thres hold th e
Moravian gap th at leads to Poland But none of their
trade passes in th at direction to th e vast Russ ian markets
that lie beyond because these are already monopolised
by th e important Polis h manufacturing distri cts that
inte rvene and th e Polish Black Country and the Russian
corn -lands form a closed economi c system of their own
On t h e old politi cal s cale then Geograp hy decreed
Th ese two p ro vin ces are in fact th e cen tr e o f gravity o f A ustrian
in dustry f ar o u tdis ta n cin g b o th L o wer Au stria an d S tyria in th eir
m in in g activity an d their textile m an u factu res W hil e th e p ro vin ces
S o u th West o f Vien na th e stro n gho lds o f p u re Germa n natio nality
lie astride th e Eastern sectio n o f th e Al ps an d are han dicapped
A co m parative table o f
eco n o m ica ll y by th eir g eo grap hical ch aracter
po p u latio ns (taken fro m th e census o f 1 900 ) wil l m ak e this clear
.
,
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,
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.
,
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,
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,
,
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,
,
1
,
,
-
,
,
,
.
German o -Tchech P ro vin ces
B o h em ia
Mo ra ia
S i esia
.
l
v
Lo w
P u re G erman Pro vin ces
er
u stria
A
(in clu din g th e
I talians o f th e Tren tino )
T yro l
.
TCHE CH AND GERMAN
266
Guarantees to a weaker partn er th at outsiders Will
uphold his in terests are a poor alternative to a capacity
for upholdin g th em himself and th ey gall th e stronger
partn er whose free action they limit and whose honesty
they put in doubt They are an occasion for bickerings
an d we h ad better do without them i f we can
A
guaran tee can perhaps be avoided in t his case by letting
th e whole of Austria with in the limits to which we
have reduced her enter the German Empire as a sin gle
1
unit on condition that s h e gran ts Home Rule within
this district to th e whole Tch ech nationality The
1
Tch ech s possessin g more th an a third of the total
population and equipped with national se lf government
would easily hold their own within the Austrian state
an d the whole Austrian unit representing propo rtion
ately th e interests of all its components would hold its
own in turn within the German Empire
B y such an arrangement th e Tch ech nationality
would assert itself through co operation wi th the
German neighbour an d not by making war on him
and two further advantages will appear when the
formula is worked out in practi ce
(i ) The existing political machinery will su ff er th e
In th e Crown lands
mi nimum amount of disturbance
Parliament which at present sits at Vienna representa
tiv es elected by manhood su f frage from populations
have made
S peakin g half a dozen diff erent languages
”
No rth Germ an y f o r co m p actn ess sak e might cede
To w hich
th e fragm en t o f S il es ia w hi ch o ur p ro pos ed P o lis h fro n tier w o u ld leave
h er beyo n d th e Rig ht b an k o f th e H tzen p lé tz stream
Recko nin g by p ro vin ces o n th e b asis o f th"e las t censu s ( 1 900) th e
Redu ced Austria will b e abo u t sixteen
to ta l po pu lati o n o f o u r
Tch ech s an d
m illio ns ; w hi l e in th e sam e y ear th ere w ere
Germ ans in th e w ho l e Au stri an Cro wn lan ds all o f who m
wil l rem ain acco rdin g to th e p resen t sch em e Wi th in th e Austrian
u n it tho u gh p ractica lly all po p u la tio ns o f o th er na tio na lity w ill h av e
been d etach ed fro m it
,
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1
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TCHECH A N D GERMAN
26 7
the effort to do legislative work togeth er and in spite of
scenes that th e tension of the racial atmosphere almost
excu ses h ave begun to acquire the constitutional habit
It would be a pity if Germans and Tch ech s (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 Tch ech Home Rule already
e xists in the Constitution of the Austrian Crown lands
under which 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 Rule in Catholic Ireland would be good
precedents for the scope of the new Tch ech parliament
to be established at Prag As in Ireland the chief
di ffi culty will lie in settling not the powers to be
delegated but the geographical limits with in which
t h ey are to be operative and this problem b rings out
the most decisive advantage of the scheme for Home
Th e fo llo win g table sho ws th e resp ective stren g ths o f th e dif feren t
na tio na lities within th e A u strian C ro wn l an ds acco rdin g to th e census
o f 1 900 an d th e n u m b er o f seats assign ed resp ectively to each natio n
ality in th e p ar liam en t at Vien n a b y th e electo ral law w hich in tro d u ced
Man ho o d S u ffrag e in 1 90 6
,
,
.
.
-
,
,
,
-
’
,
,
.
,
,
,
1
-
,
,
.
Rep resen ta tio n
233 = I
1 08 = r
.
=
34= r
37
To tal
Th e
p
re resen tatio n
516
of
certain
natio na ities
l
“
1:
I 3
5 1 2459
ll very f ar
is thus sti
fro m b eing pro po rtio n al to th eir real n u m b ers
Galicia h as secu red m o re co m p lete Ho m e Ru le than an y o ther
pro v in ce
.
1
.
TCHECH A N D GE RMAN
2 68
Rule wit hin Austria as ag ainst separate membershi p
in t h e German Empire
In the latter case just as much as if she became a
completely independent state Bohem ia Moravia would
have to be organised as a compact geographi cal u n it
so t h at th e German minority in the country would in
both cases be forced to take its government from Prag
and would need an external guarantee again st the
Tch ech s of just the same kind as the Tch ech s them
selves would be requiring agains t the whole German
nation B ut in th e event of Home Rule wit hin a u n ited
Austria the total population Tch ech and German
alike would be represented in the Vienna parliament
already the plebiscite to ascertain what sections wished
to avail themselves in addition of the pro ffered d ev o lu
tion could be taken parish by parish ; and the area
the Tch ech Nationalist administration should control
from Prag could be determined to a nicety by its
result ?
We can in fact state the general prin ciple that th e
less absolute the sovereignty that is the power of
uncontrolled irrespons ible action deman ded by any
.
-
,
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.
,
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,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
in g o u t th e m ap o f th e Tch ech Ho m e R u l e
Th e m aterials f o r d raw
ar ea are already to han d , in th e el ecto ral d istricts co ns titu ted in 1 90 6
1
A
C
H
R l
l
d
p ly
w ld
S o m e i stricts ar e u re Tch ech
f o r th e u strian en tra Par liam en t
certainl
in po pu latio n an d retu rn o nl Tch ech e u ties : th ese o u
u e
O th ers co n tain a m ix e
o u atio n o f Tch ech s
ch o o se
om e
in two co ns titu en cies o f i en tica ocal
an d
erm ans, an d are o rgan ise
ro i e
ith its o wn register o f
exten t b u t i f eren t natio na i t , each
ar iam en t :
th e
o ters an d retu rn in g its o wn n ati o n a can i ate to
b e eci e
hi ch e er na ti o na i t was in th e
ou l
ate o f th ese
m a o rity Th e Tch ech cons titu en c , i f its register co n tain e m o re o ters
f o r th e sam e are
a,
ou
o u t o te th e
erm an co ns titu en c
th an th e
u esti o n ,
hi e th e erm an
e o u tio n f o r th e area in
atter in a o u r o f
ou
retain th e area f o r cen tra isatio n
o site case
co ns titu en c in th e o
hi ch e With in th e
b u t o f co u rse e er racia co nstitu en c , tho se
h i ch r em ain e o u tsi e it a i e,
ou
u e area an d th o se
om e
ar iam en t at
re resen ta ti es to th e g en era
ienn a
co n tin u e to sen
o n th e sam e exce en t s stem as b e o re
G
v
f
l
H
j
d f
.
y
.
l y
dp
d
d p p l
d
y
ll
p vd dw
l
dd
p l
w d
d d d by w
v
l y
y
d
v
G
y
w ld v
fv
dv l
q
w l
G
y
pp
w ld
l
v y
l
y
w
f ll
R l
w
d
d
l k w ld
d p
v
lp l
V
ll
y
f
.
.
TCHECH AND GERMAN
2 70
tion of Germany wit hin its present limits h as risen in
t h e interval since 1 90 5 to
an increase of
per cent : if we add this percentage to our total for
1
the United Germany we shall find that t h e p o pu la
tion of the new German Empire within the proposed
frontiers would amount at the present moment to no
less than
souls distr ib uted into t h e following
groups
,
,
.
,
,
( ) No rth Germ an y
( Of
a
G
(13 ) S ou th erman
( 7 ) ustria
A
w ho m
wou ld
fo rm erly have b elo n ged to th e
presen t kin gdo m o f Pru ssia )
1
.
y
1
( In clu d in g abo u t
m ans an d
G er
Tch ech s )
.
76.798.ooo
If at the Conference which will meet at the end of this
war to attempt like the Vienna Congress a century ago
the lasting settlement of Europe we could succeed in
reconstit u ting the German Empire on some such lines
,
,
,
,
Th e rate o f in crease am o n g th e add ed Austrian po pu latio n is
certain l y lo w er than th e av erag e w ithin th e p resen t lim its o f Germ an y ;
b u t o n th e o th er h an d th e G erm an censu s was o n ly taken in 1 90 5, w hi l e
1
th e censu s o n
years earlier
1
p op
.
which o u r figu res f o r Au stria are b ased was taken five
"
.
f Prussi a
o
S chleswigers
and Poles in 1 90 5
to tal of
less
in 1 90 5
x
10
1
1
5
3
0
B avaria
Wu rtem b erg
Bad en
Hessen (the S o uth ern blo ck o n ly)
.
O th er territo rie
ach ed
s d et
eith er side o f Fran kfu rt
.
fro mPrussia On
To tal ( by census o f 1 90 5)
TCHECH A N D GERMA N
2 7t
these we should h ave accomplished most of th e
objects with which we started this discussion an d
avoided most of the dangers wh ich we saw ah ead of us
We should have relaid the foundations of Nationality
Schleswig and Poland where
in Alsace Lorraine
Pru ssian policy h as deliberately broken th em up and
we should have restored the superstructure of E u ropean
peace endangered thereby for many years and now
finally shattered
yet by honourably applying the
p rinciple of Nationality to Germany s advantage as well
as to her detriment we should have left her with a
considerably larger territory and population th an she
possessed before this war This just aggrandisement
would primarily benefit Germany herse lf but ulti
mately it would further th e best interests of all Europe
because it would be more likely than any oth er measure
to produce th at change in German public opinion which
is the only possible keystone of peace in the future
If Prussian militarism be refuted by the issue of this
war the German nation will assuredly be alienated from
the P russian system for ever unless either or both of
two consequences follow : eith er the humiliation of the
national h onour or such a rearrangement of frontiers
as would leave Germany at the mercy of her neighbours ,
and reduce her to a state of permanent fear
Were the Conference to create such a situation as this
the German nation would be thrown into the arms of
Prussian ism and would serve its unsympath etic ideals
with greater enthusiasm th an it has ever yet lavis h ed
upon them But if the settlement takes the line of our
proposals both th ese consequences will be avoided
Th e German Empire will emerge more majestic and
less vulnerable than before The element that is not
Pru ssian but is Germany s true soul will regain free
as
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TCHEC H AND GERMA N
2 72
’
play take the lead in th e nation s life which it held till
B ismarck wrested it away and swamp P russianism n ot
merely by t h e greater vitality of its ideas but even by
the weight of superior numbers
We can readily discern the policy which the New
Germ any will follow Her first task will be the re
building o f that magnificent commerce and industry
which it took forty three ye ars to conjure up and one
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 settlement
O f fers her once more the promise of a great economic
future Hamburg Danzig and Trieste will be secured
to her as open doors for h er commerce and mutu al
interests will bring her to an under standing with th e
Bal kan Zollverein more stable an d of wid er efl ect t han
th e present precarious customs union be tween t h e two
halves of the Dual Monarchy This labou r of good
hope will occupy the New Germany s bes t energies for
many years to come
,
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,
,
'
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’
.
PA N S L A V IS M
2 74
Spain Portug al ) have e xpanded over th e les s civilised
parts of the Earth and have divided between them both
the regions producing the b est tropical raw materials
and th e temperate regio n s o u tside Europe best sui ted to
European colonisation
(b) Two of th em France and England , have become
Great Powers by leading th e way in th e Industrial
Revolution which has tr ansformed the environment of
h uman civi lisation ; and they are now with all th eir
energies an d wi th increasing success adapting themselves
to th ese new conditions
(V In Central Europe on th e oth er h and owin g to a
less favourable start in civilisation and to subsequent
misfortunes Nationali ty did not assert itself till 1 866
1 870
and th en only by a compro m ise with Stron g
Govern ment typified in the policy of Bismarck This
h as caused several serious flaws in development here as
contrasted with th e West
(a) Only two national ities the German and th e
Magyar have here attained self government and they
have been using it ever since (following
Strong
Gove rnment tradition ) to maim and stu nt th e develop
ment of weaker nationalities behindhand in th e race :
Frenchmen of Lorrain e and Alsatians Dan es of
Sch leswi g Poles Tch ech s Italian Trentini and
South ern Slavs
(b ) Th ey have also entered with vigour th e post
nationalist phase of expan sion an d Industrialism but
here th ey have been handicapped by comin g late in the
race themselves as compared with the Western powers
”
who h ave already inhe rited the Earth
she has not
(c) Germany is bitterly conscious that
”
foun d for herself a place in the S u n but in order
to win it s h e has not concentr ated all her e fforts upon
,
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,
PA N S L A V IS M
2 75
conomi c and so cial construction though this is th e
normal activity of the present phase of European
civilisation During the last for ty th ree years s h e h as
displayed amazing ability in this direction and already
won for h erself a very large nich e 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 s he h as
chosen to foster h er Militarism the obsolete weapon
of Strong Go vern ment which Bismar ck parti ally
adapted to th e solution of the n ational problem , but
which is entirely un adaptable to the conquest of
in dustrial supremacy
(VI ) The pre sent war is Germany s attempt to h ack
h er way through th e Western nations to the best
place in the Sun by military force Th e best com
mentary on her action are the results s h e hopes to
ac hieve by it
(a ) She hopes to an nex Belgium and possibly to force
Holland in to a disadvantageous Zollverein in order that
s h e may have more convenient ports for her in dustrial
districts in Westp h alia and th e Rhineland and so to
bre ak th e power of France that she may cease to be
an independent factor in European politics If s h e
succeeds in this she will have reduced th e West to a
c haos of robbery under arms such as it has not
kn own since th e Hundred Years War an d the career
of Charles th e Bold and have swept away th e work of
four centuries not merely the national self gove m
ment inaugurated by the English and French rev o lu
tions but even the prelimin ary national consolid ation
accomplished by Louis X I an d Henry VI I
(b) She threatens to seize the transmarine possessions
of all the Western nations alike great powers an d small
e
,
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’
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’
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,
,
PA N S LA VIS M
2 76
b elligeran ts
an d
neutrals Th e attitude of Portugal
and Spain s hows what they fear This would destroy
the whole vigorous colonial development of the nin e
teen th century which only began after the result of th e
Napoleonic wars had defin itively settled th e own ership
of th ese territo ries
( VI I ) We may fairly conclude th at in this piratical
attack Ge rmany stands for reaction to a crude ideal
that European Civilisation has cons ciously transcended
while th e Western powers that are defending th emselves
again st her represent th e new activities by which
European Civilisation is opening a better chapter In
this struggle therefore it i s the World s vital interest
that Germ any should fail
.
.
,
.
.
,
.
’
,
,
.
We have reached th ese propositions throug h a survey
of the facts starting for fairness sake with th e fact that
is at once the most importan t of all and th e most d ifli
cult for us to appre ciate justly : Germany s attitude
towar ds her o wn ambitions But we found that tout
comprendre c est tout pardonner peut etre mais cc
n est point tout permettre
and we made up our minds
th at we must refute German force by force in order that
we may brin g it into our power to reorganise th e politi cal
structure of Centr al Europe on th e basis of th e West
instead of s u ffering the West to succumb to the level
of th e centre We have therefore approached the task
of reconstruction on a national basis and painfully
s triven to right th e injustices the German system has
perpetuated from Alsace Lorraine to the Western
frontier of Polan d and from Schleswig to Macedonia
But we have also recognised that this recasting of
Europe based though it be on the living will of po pu la
tions has no virtue in itself and that it is merely the
’
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PA N S L A V IS M
2 78
be realised at the expense of the Western nations
alth ough th at is th e real issue at stake The conscious
idea that spurs them is substan tially identical with th e
conviction that governs our own minds They feel
themselves to be the champions of European civilisation
”
whose cause Great Britain has basely betrayed
against the man y headed hydra of Pan slav ism
whom
”
envy has moved Great Britain to aid
For th em
Russia is th e prin cip al and we are merely her seconds
German defeat spells the abasement of civilised Europe
beneath th e barbarous Russian idea
The whole poli cy of Prussianism which we have
weighed and found wan ting transform s itself to German
eyes under th is ligh t ? If Germany is attacking th e
Western nations it is be cause they have sold t h eir
bi rth righ t and th e champion of civilisation must exact
from th em th e power and wealth th ey have prostituted
to make it bear fruit again in civilisation s cause If
Magyard o m perse cutes the Slovaks and the Min istry
of Foreign Affairs at Vienna ruthlessly represses
Southern Slav nationality it is be cause these are new
heads of th e hydra reared suddenly from an unexpe cted
quarter and must be crushed before th e vaster fangs
of Russia have time to fasten upon th e German world
from the oth er flank If German policy maintain s th e
scandalo u s misgove rnment of th e Turkish Empire over
large alien populations it is not simply in order to coax
a market for German enterprise but to close th e Russian
monster s South ern sally port We can u nderstan d
Germany s fram e of mind most eas ily from th is last
instance f o r if we h ad not kept the same d isgracefu l
,
.
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,
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,
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’
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‘
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,
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’
-
.
’
,
This, o f co u rse, exp lains why th e o fi cial j ustifi catio n o f th eir action
pu blish ed by th e Germ an go v ern m en t after th e c"atastro phe h ad
happen ed b ea rs th e titl e Ho w Russia m ad e th e War
1
,
.
PA N S LA V IS M
2 79
guard over Turkey all th rough the nineteenth century
German y wo u ld n o t h ave been able to relieve us of it
in th e twentieth
The arguments with which we defended our conduct
th en read like first drafts of the German arguments now
Russia s expansion threatens our position in India
where our rule stands for civilisation and progress and
wh ere Russian conquest would brin g darkness and
reaction The most vulnerable point in our position is
our line of communications through the Mediterranean
which is at present screened from Russia by Turkey
It will be laid bare to her if Turkey collapses We must
th erefore bolster up the integrity of Turkey and
if th e Berlin Treaty brings a generation more of
m isery to the Balkans only to be terminated by a
bloody war that does not weigh in the bal ance 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 wil l help us both to excuse
and to correct th e strongest and most conscious element
in German y s feeling at the present
We must come to grips with Pan slav ism Germany s
fear of it is a psychological fact In her belief S h e has
been driven by deadly peril to put her whole fortun e
to the touch In the light of our own attitude towards
Russia which we began to aban don less than a dozen
years ago this creates a presumption th at some real
fulcrum e xists to sustain such an immense spi ritu al
leverage and if Germany s presentment of th e Russian
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PA N S LA V IS M
2 80
ational ch aracter is tru e all o u r labours will h ave been
dis
of no avail
En glan d an d Fran ce may be
in terested
and German y may come to be li eve it ;
but it is no use bringin g Nationality into its own in
Central Europe and preserving it in the West if West
and Centre alike are thereby de livered over to be th e
prey of Russian m ilitaristic ambitions as bad as or worse
th an th ose we are now combattin g in German y
If th e A llies win this war Russia will probably ha ve a
more decisive voice th an an y of us in th e European
settlement that must follow It is our imperative task
th erefore to analyse th ose forces immanent in th e
Russian Empire which may so greatly modify the
realisation of our o wn in tentions and t h e remain der of
this book will be devoted to diff erent aspe cts of the
same question In Eastern as in Central Europe we
will approach our problem from the stand point of
Nationality
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2 82
THE RUSS IAN EMPIRE
persistentl y end eavouring to blot out from the ro ll of
nations th e noblest member of the Slavonic brotherho od
It is irrelevan t that we Germans have aided and abetted
her Polis h poli cy We are not now concerned to d is
prove our o wn guilt but only to demonstrate th at
Russia s is at least as great as ours The history of
Russia s past relations with Poland does not augur well
f o the sin ce rity of h er new homage to the National
Idea Woe to any nationality in Europe which refuses
to subordinate its destiny to th e destiny of Russia if
”
Russ ia emerges omnipotent from this war
This formidable reto rt o ff ers us a definite field for
our d isputa tion In our second ch apter we saw that
Germany s action during th e pres ent war is transform
in g the feelin g between Russian and Pole with almost
miraculous completeness so th at when the re-settle
ment of Europe is ma de th e Polis h nation will almost
certain ly be prepared to accept its restoration as a gift
from the Tsar and try to realis e its aspirations as an
autonomous member of the Russian Empire B ut
such a compact demands good faith from both parties
and the autonomy of Poland will indeed put Russia s
to th e test It may be a piece of Utopianism and the
Gr and Duke s manifesto S imply th e vow extorted from
the sinner by the menace of God s thunderbolt : in that
case the suppression of Poland on the morrow of t h e
settlement might well herald the successive ruin of
th e o ther E uropean nations : or Russia may really
abide by her word and respe ct Poland s new found
liberty
The latter event would serve as an imm ed iate
guarantee of Russia s good intentions towards the
nationalities less closely in volved with her an d situated
altogether outside h er politi cal and economic frontiers
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2 83
THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND
but it would also have a momentous eff ect upon th e
internal structure of the Russian Empire itself The
leaven of Liberalism would not confin e itself to Polan d
It would steadily penetrate the whole lump and
produce a Russia that might lead the van of European
civilisation in stead 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 th e
Polis h point of View
The history of Polish Nationality really begins with
1
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 flan ks
Their work was not so gross a crime as it is often
pain ted Vultures devour carrion never living crea
tures ; and the disappearance of the Polish state was
th e old story a long accepted commonplace furthe r
West of e fficient 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
Catho lic populations the Poles on the Vistula an d th e
Lith uanians North East of th em between the Niemen
and th e D am
They were linked first in 1 3 86 by th e
acceptance of a common dynas ty and were su b se
quently fused into a single constitutional kingdom by
the Act of Lublin in 1 56 9 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 wh en its
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In th ree stages
1 772 , 1 793 , 1 795 .
THE RU S S IA N E MP I RE
2 84
members met in diet mounted and armed to relieve its
feelings in bloods h ed than to carry on the b u siness of
government
If th e Polish nobi lity h ad reduced merely th eir own
country to anarchy it would have been bad enough ;
but they were visiting th eir in competence upon large
alien pop u lations as well and th e eighteen th century
Partitions while they opened th e Polish national
question closed once and for all several oth ers of long
stan ding
(i ) In the fourteenth century after the Mongol
invasion had shattered Russia into fragments Poland
and Lith uania incorporated by conquest vast districts
stretching South Eastward in to the Cossack steppes
towards th e B lack Sea
The population of all this
re gion was Russian by language creed and tradition
It included th e White Russians who lay North of th e
Pripet marshes and were hardly distinguishable from
the Muscovites in dialect and the Ruthenes or Little
Russians extending South and South East of th em from
the Carpath ian mountains to Kieff half way down the
course of th e D n iepr The eighteenth century parti
tions reunited these peoples with the national Russian
state except for a Westerly fragment of the Ruth enes
in Galicia which fell to Austria in 1 772 We shall find
later on th at the relation between the Russian Empire
and these branches of the Russian race still requires
adjustment but th eir transfer from Pol an d to the
Muscovite state at least advanced the problem many
stages nearer solution
(ii ) Besides th ese Russian speaking regions which
became a more or less integral part O f the Russian
national organism the Russian Empire had in cor po r
ated by 1 795 th e whole Lith uanian nation No
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THE RUSS IAN E M P IRE
286
to Austria
Th e Poles dran k th e cu p of national
h u m iliation to the dregs
The n ationalist movement to which th e Partition gave
birth had hardly time to gather force before the deliverer
cam e from France Napoleon overthrew Austria an d
1
P russia in succession and imposed on them in th e
territorial re settlement that followed the cession of all
their Polish acquisitions except the first of 1 772
He
reconstituted th e territory disgorged into the Grand
”
Duchy of Warsaw
The reversal of fortune was
complete Not only was th e whole Polish population
with insignificant exceptions rescued from the foreign
yoke but for the first time it experienced the benefits of
self government To Hein e the lonely Jew spurned
by 2 Germany with a stil l un softened medi e val heart
th e French armies came as th e bringers of good tidin gs
to th e individual soul In Polan d whic h had seen native
aristo cratic 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
d u ced and applied for seven years with the in tense
energy of th e Napoleonic spirit left a tradition in th e
nation which never died out and which differentiated
th em from th eir neighbours on all sides on whom th e
French had impressed other memories
With Napoleon s fall the flood of misfortun e did not
return upon the Poles at once We have seen how the
Congress of Vienna shore away th e province of Pos en
to give victorious Prussia a strategic frontier an d met
Russia s claims by erecting the remainder of th e Duchy
constitutional kingdom of Polan d under the
into a
Austria did n o t fo rfei t h er
A t Auster litz in 1 80 5 an d J en a in 1 80 6
share o f th e spo ils till after th e seco n d war o f 1 809
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THE RISORGIMENTO O F RO L A N D
2 87
Russian Imperial crown with the exception of Cracow
which was cut off and permitted to be a free city on
its o wn account to satisfy the strategic susceptibilities
of Austria For fif teen years the diminished nati on
retained its liberal constitution and even its French
organised native army but its position between the
three vulture powers risen again from the dust with
beaks and talons sharper than ever was too preca rious
to survive the first spasms of that birth of nationalism
in Central Europe which th e shock of the Napoleonic
wars inevitably precipitated The July Revolution of
1 83 0 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
country organ ised in Russian military governorships
while in 1 846 the Austrians marched into Cracow
The desperate revolution th at broke out again in 1 86 3
was suppressed by the cool co operation of the th ree
interested powers It had come too late The crisis of
Italy s risorgimento was already overpassed ; in Prussia
Bismarckianism was on the poin t of triumph With
the strangling of th is last convulsion the life of th e
Polish nation seemed to be extinguished for ever
But th e nineteenth century saw a more important event
th an the ups and downs of national aspirations— the
spread over Europe of that Industrial Revolution whi ch
takes no account of the political ordinances of men
Polan d s rich mineral deposits turn ed h er into a strong
hold o f the new economi c regime and during the
blackest year s of politi cal 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 t h e Imperial tari f f wall the manufactures of
the Russian districts have a preference in the vast rural
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2 88
THE RUSS IAN EMPIRE
market that stretches East of them in to As ia ; whi le
Polish unskilled labour has supplanted the native
German in Westp halia permeated to Odessa on the
Black Sea and foun d its way in increasing volume to
the United Sta tes
Thus the majori ty of the Polish nation under Russian
rule has actu ally benefited economi cally by its subjection
and economics have gone far towards settling the
politi cal destinies of the whole reunited Poland for
whose creation we now hope Even her eighteen
1
mi llions cannot stand by th ems elves with no coast
line and no physi cal frontiers ?
She must go into
partnership with one of her larger neighbours
T he Carp athian barrier shuts her out from the Balkan
Zollverein
The course of the Vi stula and the free
navigation down it to Danzig that we have stipulated
for her point to union wi th German y but the bulk of
Poland 5 exports do not flow down th is natural route to
th e Balti c Her real commercial links are with the
great Russian continent If Ga li cia becomes Russian
soil up to the Carpathi ans the trunk railway conn ectin g
Warsaw with the Black Sea will pass throu gh L em b u rg
to Odessa with out encounterin g either politi cal fron tier
or customs barrier and Poland will turn her face South
Eastwards once more but this time in co -operation
with Ru ssia and not in rivalry with her as during the
Middle Ages
Mutual economic interests then favour the idea of
Accordin g to th e last censu ses o f th e resp ective Em pires th ere are
in
P o l es in Ru ssia
in Au stria an d o v er
P ru ssia T his gi ves a to ta l o f
b u t th ere h as b een n o
an d in 1 90 7 th e R u ssian P o l es w er e
cen su s in Ru S S ia sin ce 1 89 7
un o ffi ciall y estim a ted at
Excep t f o r a sho rt secti on o f th e Carp ath ans th e b ou n daries o f th e
P o lish nati o n are d em arca ti o ns o f th e B al ti c pl a n as arb itrari ly drawn
as th e ou tl n es o f th e p rairie sta tes in th e U S A
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
2 90
harmony between Man and h is ch anged economic
environment and thi s e f fort cannot be guided to success
by an alien strong government imposed from without
but only by a national democracy of the Worke rs
evolved from within
If then the new Poland is to be a h ealthy organism
she will require the maximum measure of Home Rule
an d th e minimum of external control consistent with
membership of a wider political group The lo cal
autonomy of Galicia the most li berally treated province
of Austria will fix a level which th e Russian govern
ment s concessions will have to surpass We have
seen th at if Russia is in a position at th e end of the war
to reunite th e Po lis h nation th e Galician fragment will
be irres istibly attracted by th e possibility ; but it will
also be full of appre h ension at exchan gin g the certainty
of Austrian toleration for a dubious reception into the
b osom O f Russia and probably it will refuse to commit
its elf without a guarantee from all the parties to th e
European settlement that the autonomy of th e whole
nation with in the new state S hall be at least as far reach
ing as that w hi ch this favoured section already enjoys
The Russian Government would certain ly chafe at
such a proposal and deny the right of other nations to
intervene in Russia s internal politics If the pro posal
concerned merely the Poles already in cluded within
th e Russian Empire this protest would have weigh t ;
but it would actually arise as the corollary to a large
extension of the Russian frontier made possible by the
joint action of th e Allied Powers and Russia must
admit the authori ty of France and Great Britain to
assert th eir point of view in the settlement of questions
raised by th e war in th e East unless she is willing to
resign all s h are herself in th e settlement of the West
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THE RISORGIMENTO OF POLAND
2 91
With out derogating from th e 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 frontier of the
Russian Empire They could not of course bring
more th an moral pressure to bear upon R u ssia eith er
to admit or to endorse the guarantee ; but if Russia
withheld h er pledge the Galician plebiscite would give
her a rude shock by declaring itself for federation with
the Balkan Zollverein or with the New German y and
deprived of the support of her friends s h e would find
herself compelled to yield subsequently with a bad grace
what she might have granted beforehand as a bounty
The federal relation then be tween Poland and
Russia s hould be as secure as material in terests an d
treaty-stipulations can make it ; but we have still to
define th e geographical limits of th e future autonomous
state against the main body of th e Russian Empire
It goes without saying that the Poles must abandon the
memory of their past dominion The New Poland
must include no districts but those of Polish nationali ty
and since the line to be drawn will simply be an
administrative boundary not a tari f f wall or a strategic
frontier it can follow with some accuracy the co n vo lu
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 Galicia inh abited by a Littl e
Russian population
At th e moment when th ey are
regain ing th eir own liberty th e Poles cannot gru dge
neighbour nationalities th e same boon
The course of the new boundary should be more or
less as follows
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
2 92
Starti g from the South Eas t corner of the East
Prussian frontier just West of th e point Where th e
Lyck B ialysto ck Railway crosses it it S hould run South
East to the North bank of th e River Narew hi ttin g it
near the j un ction of the Augustowo Canal that lin ks th e
Vistula and Niemen s ystems Hence it should follow
the 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 towards th e East
till it reaches the Bug Crossing the latter river about
fifty miles below Brest it should contin ue in the same
direction till it hits the Wieprz and S hould then follow
up t h e course of this stream in turn towards the
as far as its most Easterly bend thus in cluding Lublin
but excludin g Cholm After leavin g the Wieprz th e
line sho u ld run due South excluding Zamosz till it
hi ts the present Austro Russian frontier when ce it
should bend So uth Wes t till it meets the River San
at its great angle from East to North West between
Yaroslav and Przemysl Thence it should follow the
course of the San upwar ds thus assigning Yaroslav
to Polan d but excludin g Przemysl which lies on the
river s Right bank till it reaches the other great bend
from North to East between Przemysl an d S anok At
this point it should leave th e San exclud ing Sanok
run due South West till it strikes the Hungarian frontier
along th e summit of th e Carpathians and proceed to
follow the mountains Westward till it reach es th e point
on the summit of the range just East of the Ratibor
Si llein Railway which we took as the starting place for
our western frontier ?
S ee M ap II
Th e bo u n dary w hich we h av e j u st sk etch ed b etw een Au to n o m o us
P o lan d an d th e m ain b od y o f th e Ru ssian E m p ire pr actically co in cid es
with th e E astern bor d er o f th e terr to ry con tin u o usly in h ab ited by Po l es
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THE RUS S IAN EMP IRE
2 94
nderstanding to g rasp a liberal policy If she were
merely uns crupul ous she wo u ld begin to act righ teously
as soon as it paid h er to do so but s h e is stupid as well
and from the combination of these two vices no good
can sprin g
This criti cism compels us to abandon th e field
of Russia s objective interests and to reopen our
dis cussion on th e more fu ndamenta l pl ane of her
subjective character ; for u nless we can vindicate that
the N ew Poland we have so elaborately built up will
p rove a house of cards an d may carry the oth er nations
of Europe with it when it co llapses in ru in
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B Th e N a tiona l Ev olu tion of Russia
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Germany s reproach to England for havin g join ed
forces with Russ ia against her is couched in terms like
th ese
You have de cided to fight us because you
hate and fear our Militarism You believe we aspire
to World Empire and mean to take your inheritan ce
from you by force and naturally you imagine as every
nation must that your o wn downfall would be a setback
to civi lisation We will not be at the pains to argue
with you but we point out that if you succeed in
crushin g us with Russia s aid you are laying up a worse
fate both for yourselves and for th e world Russia on
th e most favourable interpretation is only made of the
same stu fi as ourselves but in an inferior quality and of
a coarser grain Her ambitions an d her meth ods of
forwarding them reflect our o wn and our strength is th e
only bar to their realisation The Cossack will ride
over our corpses to the conquest of th e world and
when you see him enter Copenhagen and Stamboul an d
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THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION O F RUSS IA 2 95
Koweit you will regret the anni hilation of German
"
culture
We could dismiss German y s Pan slav bo gy with
a smile if it had not found a response in t his coun try
but After Germany Russia is a p h rase th at already
comes too glibly upon people s lips Is the supreme
objective of Peace for which we are sacrificing every
thing now illu so ry s And does the lifting of one war
cloud merely draw a heavier one above th e horizon f
If the soul of Russia is like the soul of modern Germany
with th e evil heightened and the good expunged there
see m s no issue for th e World Germany has challenged
the comparison and we will take her at her word and
test it
If we compare the governments of th e two empires
th e German contenti on is clearly righ t Th e purposes
and methods of the Russian and German bureaucracies
are roughly th e same but whereas th e German govern
ment is e fficient and on the whole has public opinion
beh in d it the Russian is out of touch with th e nation
obs curan tist an d ineffective
Judging th en by the
functioning of th e administrative machine Germany
is far superior to Russia and it may be argued th at
admin istrative e fficiency is an adequate criterion of com
parativ e civilisation because it presupposes that faculty
of orderliness an d looking ahead which we emp hasised
at th e beginning as civilisation s essence
This argument would be valid if th e govern m ent
but even in th e
an d th e governed could be equated
democratically-o rganised states of Western Europe th e
two factors do not coincide and in the Cen tre an d
East th ey do not approximate to one anoth er O n th e
one side stands the German Government e xploitin g all
the national accuracy an d forethought born of civilisa
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TH E RUS S IAN EMP IRE
2 96
tion to brin g about its o wn specialis ed and as we j u dge
it uncivilised end of world conquest just as a t rust
exploits se curity of property an d rapidity of co m m u n ica
tions to gnaw the weal th of th e community in w hich it
shelters On th e other side the great German nation
renoun cing its ideals and surrendering that very essence
of ci v ilisation the power of free choice and of looking
ahead with one s own eyes h as indentured itself to the
service of th e Government s bad cause The success
of the German Government in its present po licy has b een
an indictm ent of the German Nation in the present
phase of its character You need employ no violen ce
against a willing accomplice nor conduct an obscurantis t
campaign again st a demoralised in telligenz ia which has
the lie already in its so ul
We have seen that Germany s h istory h as reversed the
normal order of European evolution Prussian ism is in
th e as cend ant : it is th e dominant in spirin g force of
th e nation s growth an d any success Ge rm any may
achi eve under its banner will impress the iron mould
more deeply upon her soul The Prussian milita ristic
bureaucracy is a livin g power Russia on the oth er
hand has reproduced so far precisely th e phases of
Western Europe though like Serbia and her other
Balkan proteg ees she has suffered from a very late start
Her histo ry began little more than two hundred years
ago In the seventeenth century she was a stagn an t
mass still dazed by the shock of Mongol conquest that
had struck her down four centuries earlier half
orientalised by the Mongol s u zerainty that had followed
th e impact and cut o ff from the outer World by th e
lack of a seaboard She stood to Europe as Macedonia
stood to Hellas at th e beginning of the fourth century
B C
and she found her Philip in Peter the Great
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TH E RUSS IAN EM P IRE
2 98
bureaucracy to bankruptcy It has no longer risen to
th e problems of internal growth and it has suff ered
grave military dis credit abroad The Crime an cam
”
W ar of th e Span ish Succession th e
p aign was its
un expectedly disastrous struggle with Japan its
Seven Years War
Its prestige has suf fered blows
from w hich it can never recover but th e outworn
c h rysalis has held to geth er long enough to do its work
Durin g th is same nineteenth century the Russian
nation an inarticu late Tityo s lying prone across h alf a
contin ent has awakened to th e clearest consciousness
and e xpressed itself in a literature as distinctive and as
momentous for the spiritual history of th e World as
th e literature of eighteenth century France
Nor is this a h ouse built on the sands The Russian
in telligenz ia draws its living water from a deep well
sp rin g of national life W hen you read a Russian novel
you pass out of the cosmopo litan environment of
Industrial Europe into Holy Russia an environment
of river and forest and snow and sun an d a tradition of
religion and of so cial c u stoms utterly unfamiliar to you
before but you habituate yourse lf to it with un looked
for ease because th e sense of life that pulses th rough
it is as convincing as th e sound of th e sea when it
falls after months of absence upon your ears The
Russian nation h as found its soul : the ne xt p h ase
will inevitably follow and effete strong government
give place to th e captain cy of th e n ation 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 interv ention in the
cause of A merican Independence that gave liberalism
entrance into the fortr ess of o fficial policy The
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THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION OF RUSS IA 2 99
Russian Government cannot unfurl its banner in a
similar cause with out considerably changing the legend
embroidered upon it before it is laid away again A
change of outlook will mean a ch ange of personnel :
Russia may fin d a Turgot and a Necker wh o profitin g
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 stron ger and
more purposeful Lafayette
The friction and misunderstanding then that at
present e xists between the Government and the People
of Russia is not as German opinion suggests a S ign
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 Russian bureaucracy belongs to the past Liberalism
is in the ascendant and will prevail
We have now compared Germany and Russia by
bringing out th e respective tendencies that are asserting
themselves in each and this is t h e only true principle of
estimating national values The symbolism of political
cartoons in whic h the figure of John Bull a squire in
Regency costume sta nds 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
th e implication that that is the nation s eternal essence
The device produces the same co m ic eff e ct as the snap
shot o f a race h orse galloping but the humour con
sists just in t h e static presentment of a kinetic reality
and thus depends upon a distortion of historical
truth National character is not static because a nation
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T HE RUS SIAN EMPIRE
3 00
is alive The essence of it is not t h e ph ase it happens
to occupy at the moment but th e wh ole movement of
its growth and we can forecast a mov ement s tendency
with mos t probabili ty though of course any calcula
tion of the future is ex hypo thesi conjectural by a
survey of such p h ases of it as have already been
ac tualised
Met in this way Germany s challenge turns to her
own despite Our conclusion makes us more eager
than ever for Germany s d isco m fitu re in th is war and
more zealous in our all iance with Russia for we feel
that the triumph of Russia as well as the triumph of
Great Britain and France will be in harmony wit h t h e
true advancement of European civilisation
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C Devo lu tion
.
W e have compared th e past history of Russia with
that of other European nations and analogy has
inclined us to augur for her a liberal future Yet we
shall not satisfy our German critic till we have o fl ered
him some concrete programme of the lines on which
t h is prospective liberalism can should and will be
realised
The c hief obstacle to the progress of self government
in Russia h as been the shortness of her history The
second an d hardly less formidable factor is the im
Before the invention
m en sity of her territorial extent
of modern communications a vigorous absolutism
seemed th e only force capable of holding together
such a widespread mass of humani ty But now the
mechanism of telegraph and railway can take the place
of strong government s centripetal action and local
individuality receive free play in th e political sph ere
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TH E RUS S IAN EMP IRE
30 2
d efence and might satisfactorily leave the whole internal
admin istration of Lithuania to Home Ru le
(b ) The Letts inhabiting Courland and Livland on
either bank of the Dii na 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 K nights and at the Reformation submissively
followed their masters into the Protestant camp li ke th e
Masurians in Prussia After the dissolution of the Order
this territory was partitioned between Sweden and
Poland and when it became one agai n under Russian
govern ment the Germ an landed aristocracy descended
from the secul arised kni ghts played for a time a
pro m inent part in the history of the Empire owin g to
their s u perior education and acquaintance with Euro
pean life
n
The
Northern
part
of
Livland
from
a
li
e drawn
c
()
East an d West between the Lake of Pskov and the Gulf
of Riga together with Esth lan d the sister province along
the Southern coast of the Gulf of Finland h as shared
the po litical and religious history of the Lettish districts
but th e population here speaks a language of entirely
d ifferent origin a dialect of the great Ugro Finn ish
group
The bond of common Protestantism and German
culture may override these diff erences of native speech
and incline the people of Courland Livland an d
Esth lan d to consolidate all three provinces into a single
self govern ing area or in asmuch as public education
in the nation al language is one of the chief objects of
devolution the Lettish speakin g and Esthonian speak
ing sections may elect to organ ise themselves apart
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THE RUS S IAN EMP IRE
304
and th e nati ons themselves have come to man the
opposing camps with their former despots at their
head as their chosen leaders while th e issue now at stake
is whether the strong nation shall use the freedom that
it has won for th e oppression of its neighbour or whether
all nations great and small shall live orderly side by
side as members of a wider commonwealth
This issue is being fou ght out in the present war an d
Russia has joined battle on the side of national liberty
If her eff orts in co operation with th ose of the Western
powers de cide the struggle in favour of our common
cause and we achi eve the much -d esired re settlement of
Central Europe on the national bas is at the expense
of German and Magyar chauvinism Russia will have
neither the will nor the power to tarry longer from settin g
her own house in order She has sin n ed against th e
National Idea in th e past no less th an her present
antagonists an d if all the nationalities in her Empire
have rallied round her government at th e present crisis
it is because th ey are willing to forget the past in th e
hope of a happier future Russia cann ot now aff ord
to disappoint this hope even if she is tempted to do so
The spark of Nationalism has continued to smoulder
in the hearts of th ese border nations during the century
that th ey have been groun d between th e hammer an d
anvil of rival im perialisrn s and each oppressor has
fostered it in tu rn to point a thrust in the long bout of
fence against h is accomplices But now Russia by
putting forth all her strength to remove th e pressure
"
from the one side with blood and iron has pledged
herself to re lieve it by her own free grace on th e other
Th e raising up of th ese prostrate nations in th e blackest
hour of their despair will transform th em from a fringe
of disaff e ction into a girdle of loyalty and will be the
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DEV O LUTION
30 5
best guarantee that Russia will not have spent her
strength in vain but if th e settlement at th e close of
this war fails to alleviate th eir condition by Russia s
good will the liberal spirit of Europe which will h ave
triumph ed in the victory of the Al lies will inevitably
accomp lish 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 should induce Russia
not merely to grant Home Rule to a ring of nationalities
within her frontier but actually to abandon all hold
upon a population Whose national centre of gravity lies
defin itely on the further side of it In th e present
campaign the Russian arm ies have occupied the Austri an
Crown land of Bukovina pin ioned between the Car
p ath ian s an d th e North East angle of Roumania ; but
with th e dissolution of the Dual Monarchy the province
should pass not to Russia but to th e neighbouring
Rouman ian state to which its inhabitants belong by
nationality
Roumania is at present considerably the most pros
1
pero n s and well popula ted of the Balkan States and
would take the next place in importance to Hungary
in our proposed Balkan League ; but she is in th e
unfortunate position of possessing a large irredenta
both in Hungarian and in Russian territory which h as
so far alienated her sympath ies both from the Dual
Monarch y and from th e Russian Empire an d prevented
h er arrivin g at an endurin g understanding with either
Should th e European settlement however secure a
satisfactory m odus v ivendi for th e non Magyar n atio n ali
ties o f Hun gary in cluding h er Rouman citizens an d
so enable Hu ngary and Roumania to co operate in the
Po p u latio n ab o u t
in 1 91 0
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THE RUSS IAN EMPIRE
30 6
new Zollverein th e qu arrel between th ese two states
would be at an end an d Roum an ia s resen tment wo u ld
concentrate itself upon Russia much more to Russia s
detriment th an before because Roumania would h ave
th e whole Balkan group behind her It would th erefore
be worth Russia s while to satisfy if possible Rou
mania s just claim s by concedin g to her not merely
territories conquered in this war but a province long
in corporated in her Empire
1
Roumania covets Bessarabia the d istrict between
th e Pruth and the Dn iestr This coun try is val u able
to Russia sim ply for its coast lin e which gives her
access to th e North ern arm of th e Danube delta The
in terior is unimportant to her for though her chief
Black Sea port Odessa lies only a few miles up th e
3
th e railways lin king
coast East of th e Dn iestr liman
it to its hin terlan d even to th e new Russian territory in
Galicia all pass outside Bessarabia beyond the D niestr 5
Left bank The interior however is the part of th e
province where the Rouman element is strong while th e
steppe towards the co ast is inhabited by th e relics of
Tatar nomads by German colonists planted there to
teach them agriculture 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 reason able basis for division
The
new frontier between Russia and Roumania should start
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Ced ed by Tu rkey to Ru ssia in 1 8 1 2 Th e p o pu lat o n egistered in
f 1 8 97 was
in cl d i n g
th e R u ssian censu
Ro u m ans
B u l gar
Germ a ns
lem e t t b e thre qu art
b t R o u m an a th o it es r cko n th e R m a
S ee M ap V
o f th e p p l ati o n
Estu y
1
i
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s o
r
u
s
r
u
u
o
u
ar
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i
e
ou
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n e
n
o
e
ers
3 08
THE RUS S IAN EMPIRE
Zollverein th e free use of a railway to a port on th e
In
n coast
wh ere s h e could lade an d u nl oad her
goo ds on the open sea
,
.
We h ave now dealt with th e whole frin ge of alien
nationalities within th e Western frontier of th e Russian
Empire A fringe is all th at they are their territories
are insignificant slices carved from the Empire s enor
mous bulk and their populations weigh light in the
balance against the Russian speakin g masses that lie
away to their East The Russians have far less excuse
than th e Magyars for t h e oppression by force or fraud
of their fellow nationalities because the most quixotic
generosity could not endanger the Russian element s
1
preponderance
The mere weight of the Russian
popula tion is su ffi cient to assure for ever t h e Russian
ch aracter of the Empire and the balance of numbers
is continually s hifting further in its favour year by year
as colonial are as fill up in th e Great North East The
only really di fficult problem of devolution within the
Emp ire concerns the relations between the diff erent
branches of the Russian Nation itself
The Russian race falls into two great divisions
distinguished by considerable di ff erence of dialect
Th e fo ll o win g tabl e sh o win g th e co m p arativ e stren gths o f th e m ost
im p o rtan t natio n alities within th e Russian E m p ire was co m p i l ed fro m
esti m ates m ad e in 1 906
To tal N or th R ussians
G reat Russians
To ta l Russians
White Ru ssians
L i ttl e Ru ssians
Po les
L ithu an ian s
L etts
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Fin n s
Tatars
B as h kirs
K irghi z
l p op u lat n o f th E m p ir e was est m ated at
year
Th e to ta
in th e sam e
io
.
e
i
DEVOLUTION
3 09
(i ) The whole No rth of the country is occupied by
the
Great Russian
group which is composed 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
(b ) The Wes tern coinciding with the region once
subject to Lithuania where the so called
Wh ite
Russian variety of the dialect is current
(0) The Eastern round the original core of the
Muscovite principality where the dialect S hows d iv erg
en ces from the pure No rthern type S imilar to those
that prevail in White Russia
These three modifications of th e Great Russian speec h
have remained mere parochial peculiarities and have
not aroused any separatist feelings between the p o p u la
tions that respectively S peak them The third or
”
Moscow
type has established itself as the or g an
of o fficial administration and of educated intercourse
because the principality of Moscow was the nucleus
out of which 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 other local patois
Great Russian then is a single language
(ii )
and all the populations th at 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 face of a real cleavage The extension of the Great
Russians coin cides on th e whole with the forest Z one
of the country Th e Little Russians lie South of them
deployed in a long line on the borderland between forest
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
3 10
and steppe which e xtends from the headwaters of th e
Vistula and Dn iestr systems in th e Carpathian s towards
the
till it strikes the upper course of the Don
near Vo ro n esh
Th is wide flung ribbon of population has a strong
national feeling of its own The Great Russian can
claim that it was he who freed the race from the Moslem
yoke and th at the li v in g Russia of th e present with its
glories of arms and of letters is solely his creation ;
but the Little Russian looks back to the day before
th e Mongol appeared in the land when the D n iep r not
the Volga was the holy river of Russia and Kie ff h alf
way down its course her h oly city the meeting place of
“
the strong government and the world-religion th at
came up to her from opposite quarters out of the
B altic and th e Black Sea He regards himself as the
true heir to thi s primitive tradition an d his loyal ty to
it is all th e keener because so many centuries lie between
the Golden Age and his present obscuri ty
Little Russia unlike Muscovy never recovered from
th e Mongol catastrophe She escaped from alle giance
to the Moslem only by sub m ission to th e Lithu anian
and P olish Catholic and even wh en t h e Polish Empire
was broken up she did not win h er unity from th e
but was di vided with the rest of the
re settlement
spoils between the govern ments of Moscow and Vienna
Yet the problem of Little Russian nationalism might
still have been solved The Ruthenes of Galicia were
only a small fraction of the race the major part of it
including the national centre Kie f f and the whole of the
D n iep r basin was once more gathered into the fold of a
national Russian state
and if Moscow could have
been liberal enough to accept Kie f f as her peer the
Little Russians would soon have forgotten th eir
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THE RUSS IAN E M P IRE
312
the Ruth ene peasant proprietors constitute the bulk of
1
the population in Eastern Gali cia the big es tates
are still nearly everywhere in the hands of a Polish
upper class a relic of the Polis h domination before the
Partition of 1 772 and in the eighties of the last century
the Austrian government abandoned the Ruthene
majority to the mercy of the Polish minority when it
was bidding for the suppor t of the Polish vote in the
parliament at Vienna
Th e Poles had th e game in th eir hands because both
wealth and education were at that time their monopoly
and they took steps to confirm their racial p red o m in
ance They compelled the Austrian government to
recognise Polish as the o fficial language of th e whole
province and it has taken the Ruthenes a generation to
secure a modicum of instruction in their own langu age
2
at Lemberg University Resentment at their betrayal
to the Poles raised a movement among them in favour
of Russia and a M o skalo p hil party grew up whose
programme was that reunion with the national Russian
state which is now being realised but the M o skalo p hils
have always been in a minority and no indi ctment
against Russian poli cy in the Ukraine could be more
damning than the almost universal rejection of Russian
overtures by the Ruthenes of E astern Gali cia
”
In modern Austria o fficial language has not the
same sinister connotation as in the neighbour states of
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Th e Ru th en e terri to ry am o u n ts to a bo u t two -thirds o f th e w ho l e
area o f Ga licia, ev en if w e m ak e a li b eral al l o wan ce f o r th e P o lish
en cl av es em bedd ed in it
o n th e o th er h an d, th e R u th en e el em en t is
in 1 900, as
o nl y a m in o rity o f th e to tal p o p u l atio n o f G ali cia
a g ain s t
P o les) , b ecau s e th e Ru th en e co u n try is m o re m o u n
ai o us an d l ess d ev elo p ed th an th e Western districts occu p i ed by th e
1
ip
j 0 es
'
Ihe
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G erm an fo rm o f R ssian Lvo v L ttl e Russian L wiw Po lish
u
,
i
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DEVOLUT I O N
313
Russia Prussia and Hungary Like German i n th e
remaining Austrian provinces Polis h is o fficial in
Galicia in the sense that it is the vehicle of internal
service in the ad m inistration of the country In the
”
external se rvice however that is in all relations
between the provincial government and the individuals
subject to its jurisdiction Austrian public law prescribes
in Galicia as elsewhere the employment of the private
party s native speech if it is recognised as customary
L an d esiib lich
in the district
A Ruthene thus enjoys the right to conduct all his
business with the Polish administration in his own
Ruthene tongue If h e is a pe asant he can bring an
action in Ruthene before th e public courts if he is a
deputy he can debate in Rut h ene 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 Galician railways he
finds every o ff i cial notice down to the inscription on his
ticket printed in Ruth ene 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 th e spher e of higher education where the Polish
regime has laid itself open to most criticism the number
of Ruthene secondary schools in Galicia has at least
risen though slowly since 1 86 7 while in Hungary the
non-Ma gyar secondary schools have steadily shrunk
in numbers during th e same period On the whole we
may say that th e Ruthene majority in the Eastern part
of Galicia is treated as equitably as is consistent with the
racial 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
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
3 14
In Galicia th en the Little Russian l anguage is
deprecated but in no sense banned
A society has
flourished for many years at Lemberg which fosters the
living literature collects and edits the peas ant poetry of
th e past and studies the philological characteristics of
th e dialect
with a freedom unheard of East of the
frontier The Tsar s government has held the mistaken
poin t of view that the encouragement of traditional
culture inevitably gives rise to new fangled political
aspirations and h as thereby provoked this literary group
at Lemberg to become in fact the mouthpiece of a Little
Russian nationalist par ty whi ch h as th e allegiance of a
majority among the Austrian Ruthenes This party
dreams of a national state in whic h all fractions of the
Little Russian race shall be united and its feelin g against
Petersburg is so bitter th at in spite of the en ten te at its
e xpense between Vienna and the P oles it is ready
to march under Austria s banner and all ows its
canvassing in the Ukr aine to assume th e form of
1
Austrian propaganda
This bizarre situation has s u ddenly been terminated
by the present war
In th e event of the Allies
success we have seen that Gali cia will pass to th e
Russian Empire The whole of the Little Russian race
will finally be united within Russia s frontier but the
annexation of the Galician Ruthenes will create the
same situation for her as that of the Galician Poles
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l y ly
R
C
lG v
V
v
Gl
p l y
by k
l yly
l
w
d
lb l
b
d
df
b v
d v
l
R
d bl
ly
pl
k
p b bl
V
y
p d
l
b l p yb
l R
l
G
y
b
R
q
by xpl
p bl
k
o ern
It is tru e th at to W in th e o a t o f th e u th en es th e en tra
a icia n
o ic ,
m en t at i enn a h as h ad to re erse in so m e m easu re its
ere o u t
an d th at it h as th ere
sh a en th e o a t
o f th e P o es, w h o
ro m a o e
a an ce in G ali cia
rag e
to fin d th e racia
ein g re ress e
To ri e P o e an d u th en e in o u e h arn ess is r eal a ho e ess tas ,
it at th e in stan ce o f
an d it is
i enn a o nl
attem te
ro a
e that
B er in S in ce h er u ng i n g o li c egan to reco n ci e u ssian an d Po e,
e
o it
erm an
h as so u gh t to em arrass u ssia i n an o th er u arter
in g th e ro em o f th e U r ain e
1
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TH E RUSS IAN EMPIRE
3 16
From the outset this new popu lation has been very
h eterogeneous
The Germanophil governm ent of
Catherine I I copied the Hapsburg experiment of sowing
civi lisation by s ca t terin g plan tations of German settlers
"
and in New Russia as in Hun gary th e balance was
largely made up of refugees from the various Christian
populations subject to Turkish oppression
The
colonisation of th e d istrict received an immense impetus
from the eman cipation of the serfs in 1 86 1 since wh en
the peasants in every province of Russia have been
leavin g their an cestral villages and driftin g into all the
undeveloped areas to take up freehold allotmen ts th ere
but inasmuch as the Great Russian population of the
Empire is vastly stronger than the Little Russian in
numbers the Great Russian immigrants in to the steppes
outweigh the Little Russian in the like proportion
When N ew Russia has been completely filled up the
Little Russian element will not be found to predominate
and so when th e various elements subsequently fuse
themselves into one type the New Russian blend
will not assume a spe cifically Littl e Russian colour
What is true of the Black Sea steppes is still truer
of the coast upon which they open Odessa the new
port foun ded in 1 792 is an ind ispensable factor in the
econo m i c system of th e Black Earth zone for the
whole grain expor t passes through its harbour but it
has no special links of tradition or dialect with the Little
Russian nationality an d is essentia ll y a common outlet
and meetin g place of all races in th e Empire in cluding
the Poles while the isolated Crimean peninsula which
adjoins it on the East has remained th e stronghold of a
civilised agri cultural and vine growin g Tatar pop u lation
New Russia then has no social bonds of cohesion with
Little Russia and could never be abso rbed into it but
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DEVOLU T ION
3 17
a self-governing Little Russian unit which did not extend
to the coast would geographically and economically be
almost unthinkable It would possess none of the pre
requisites for self su fficien cy
(ii ) Yet even if Little Russia were able by assimilat
i n g the coast or otherwise to conso lidate herself a more
serious d ifli cu lty 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
homogeneous in nationality and the only problem is
caused by its bulk it is best organised in a large number
of self governing units which being ex hyp o thesi
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
and will probably be adopted
as the basis of the New China
(6) American history however has also shown that this
system of equal units is extremely dangerous where the
total population is divided by diff erences of nationality
In fact so soon as the least divergence of national self
consciousness creeps in it will transform the divisions
between units whi ch 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 t h is 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 di fferences are violent and traditional and
where the architect has still a clean slate to adopt this
principle would be deliberate folly
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
318
When common interest or necessity induces several
diff erent nationalities to attempt combination in a single
1
organi c politi cal group success can only come through
inequality by subjecting a number of lesser satellites to
the attr action of a central planet and the inequality
must be signal If the satellites approach the planet too
nearly in mass or the planet shrinks into too even a
ratio with the satellites they will all when a certain poin t
is reach ed fly o ff at a tangent an d probably collide
fatally with one another before they severall y disappear
in space
The unity of the Russian Empire is to the interest of
nearly all th e nationalities that are members of it but
2
th at unity can only be maintained by grouping th e rest
round a Russian national state of imm ense preponder
ance We have said that the Russian nation need have
no fear of being swamped by its fellow nationalities
but that remains true only so long as the nation itself
remains united The littl e Russian element for m s
3
nearly a third of the whole race an d if it were to break
o ff from the main body and attempt to follow an orbit of
its own it would fatally d islocate the balance of the whole
Imperial system It would approximate su fficiently
in mass to the Great Russi an remnant to struggle with
it for predominance and t his fratricidal strife would
wear down the stren gth of the two fragments and
prevent them from concentrating their energy to keep
A s co n trasted W th a l oose p assiv e co n cert li ke th e p ro p osed B alkan
Z o llv erein
Wi th ou t p rej u dice o f co u rse to th eir o wn l ocal self go v ern m en t
Gr eat Ru ssian
L i ttl e Ru ssian s
8
In th e Ukrain e
—2
%
)
9
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In G al ic1a
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To tal o f R ussian N atio n
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TH E RUSS IA N E MP IRE
3 20
Siberian Railway which still await e ff e ctive colonisation
an d by the mi litary districts of the Caucasus and the
Asiati c steppes whose primary need at pr esent 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 po pu la
tion contain ed within the limits indi cated whi ch will
be represented in the parliament of the national Russian
unit falls little S hort of a hundred millions There
ar e
however several factors eminently favourable to
the successful organisation of this huge mass of human
bein gs
(i ) The geographical unwieldin ess of the country is
counterbalanced by the extraordinary facility of com
The great navigable rivers have always
m u n icatio n
af forded magnificent natural highways
the Volga
steamer was as important a factor in nineteenth century
Russia as the Mississippi steamer was in the contem
and the network of
p o rary development of the
railways which as in A merica has first supplemented
and now begun to supplant the river steamer s use
especially in th e new cornl ands of the South can extend
itself over the length and breadth of the land with out
encountering any barrier of mountains
(ii ) The Great Russian race has taken full advantage
of the geographical elasticity of its habitat and expand
in g from its original centre of dispersion in the North
Western forests has kept pace with the poli tical exten
sion of the Muscovite state s frontiers In its conta ct
with the alien races that it has thereby encountered it
has d isplayed a vitality and assimilative power com
parable to th at of the Anglo -Saxon race in America
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DEVOLU T ION
32 1
Th e little patches of Ugro Finnis h population th at still
survive in the heart of Great Russia — Karelians between
Novgorod an d Tver among the Valdai hills Chere
misses and Mordvins between Nij n i Novgorod and
Kazan on the Middle Volga — testify to the vanis h ed
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
tin u ed to day at the expense of the more widely spread
—
Finnis h groups of the North East
Votyaks and
—
r
e
n
s
and
Voguls
and
Ostyaks
protected though
Sy y
1
they are by the rampart of the Northern Urals
Th e nomadic
Turkis h speaking comm u ni ties
2
Bas h kirs and Chuvashes that adjo in the Volga Finns
on the South East wandering with th eir flocks among
th e Southern Urals and along th e border of the steppes
are suffering th e fate of those pathetic little Red Indian
reservations in Canada and the
round wh ich
the tide of European immigration surged high er all
th roug h th e nin eteenth century till some inconsequent
act of lawlessness broke the moral obligation that h ad
so far preserved their bounds and abandoned them to
submerg ence beneath the flood But th e mere engulfing
of in ferior races is not th e greatest triumph of th e
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Th e rem n an ts o f Fin n ish p o p u latio n still awaitin g abso rp tio n by th e
Ru ssian race, in clu din g th e Ural gro u ps, b u t exclu din g, o f co u rse, th e
Fin ns o f th e Gran d D u chy wh o h ave a civi lisatio n an d a
natio n al co nscio u sn ess su p erio r, o n th e w ho l e, to th e Ru ssian , m ake u p
a to tal o f
(id en tical , cu rio u sly en o u gh, with th e to tal o f
civil ised F irm s in F in l an d)
Th ere are fu rth erm o re
civil ised
Firm s in Ru ssian territo ry adj o inin g th e Gran d D u chy wh o are u nlikely
to b e assim il ated
1
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1
B ashkirs
Chu vashes
TH E RUSS IAN EMPIRE
32 2
Russian nation it h as known how to recon cile a rival
civilisation
Ch ristian and Moslem h ave met as enemies on many
fields and th e result of th e stru ggle has often brought
th em into the relation of conquerors and conquered
Yet which ever party has triump h ed a great gulf has
generally remained fixed between th e two and e n forced
politi cal union instead of passin g over as in so many
oth er cases in to org an ic political unity has only
accentu ated th eir mutual an tipath y Russia alone h as
managed to solve th e problem The Tatars of the
1
Volga Khanates conquered by her in the sixteenth
century were communities of peasants and merc hants
with a tradition of culture derived from Persia an d
Baghdad as strongly characterised as tha t which Russia
herself had drawn from Constantinople and the West ;
yet now th e Tatars while remaining true to their
religion have become Russian in soul and have found
both the opportunity and the inclin ation to play a full
part in th e social and political life of the Russian nation
This is a victory not of race but of civilisation or
rath er what is better still it is the blending of two
civilisations into a new harmony
It is clear th en that the Great Russian element has
the power to weld th e whole hundred millions into a
consolidated nation and in the process not only Fin ns
Bashkirs and Tatars but the more compact Little
Russian masses as well will ultimately lose their
pecu liar individuality It would be idle for the Little
Russians to complain at th e prospect If their lan guage
is h enceforth given as good an opportunity for self
assertion as th e Moscow dialect and still yields ground
before the latter the cause will no longer be human
Kazan an d Astrak han
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T HE RUSS IAN EM P IRE
3 24
awoke in th em an unexpected energy D u rin g the
chaos in to which th e Empire fell for th ree years th ey
took th e initiative Repeated congresses of delegates
from the lo cal dumas and Ze m s tvos evolved in con
ference with th e autocracy the constitution of October
1 90 5 and th e elective mac h inery of the first national
dumas was modelled on th e local plan Th e provincial
district and mun icipal co u nci ls have not let th eir
recovered power slip again from their han ds and a
p h ase of really constructive activity undoubtedly lies
before th em
T his th en is th e Russia of the future whi ch we
can discern th rough th e chrysalis of eigh teenth century
auto cracy from which th e Russia of th e present h as been
so painft e xtricatin g herself It is not a mere dream
of th e imagin ation The regime in possession fas cinates
our attention just as th e royal murders in Serbia o ccu
pied the wh ole vision of the Magyar professor The
repressive unscrupulous police government keeps us
unpleasantly aware of its e xistence by th e startling
ech oes of its misdeeds that filter t h rough into our press
and the hysterical often criminal intrigues of the
revolutionists who claim to represent the in telligenz ia
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 th e world s
notice The exploitation of the Black Earth zone
the conciliation of the Moslems and the evolution of
the zemstvos are signs of the times
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E X PANS I O N
D
325
Exp ansion
.
We have not however completely an swered th e
”
Germans case
Granted
they will say
that
Russia has this liberal future before her th at national
self government will be attain ed by th e different races
within the Empire alien and Russian alike and that
th e old ideal of Repression at home and aggression
abroad will be sloughed off togeth er with her obsolete
eighteenth century strong government
if we grant
you all this you must allow us to turn again st you your
own weapon o f historical an alogy You have illustrated
th e tendency of Russia s gro wth by a comparison with
eighteenth century Fran ce But France after she had
achieved national self government in the Revolution
proceeded to rob territory from oth er nations like th e
most vulgar minded despotic conqueror Perhaps you
may ascribe this conduct not to France h erself but to
the personal ambition of Napoleon ; or you may say
that though the French nation a century ago did adop t
unmodified the Bourbons dynastic point of view the
Industrial Revolution has intervened meanwhile and
entirely changed the attitude of self govern ing nations
—
towards their foreign policy th at they do not now wage
war for territorial acquisition but for economic ad v an
tage aimin g to add market to market not province to
province If you take up th is position we can answer
you out of your o wn 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 survi val while Bismarck had to reh ab itu ate
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
32 6
cultured peaceable people to blood and iron and
put str ong govern ment in the foreground again becaus e
in Germany its primary task of consolidation had never
previously been achieved But our new mi litarism did
not die with the accomplishment of the task for whi ch
it had been called in to being : rightly or wrongly we
Germans have cherished it (as you have pointed out )
precisely as a weapon in the modern economic battle
to snatch the industrial markets of the World from the
If you beat
n ations established in possession of them
us in this war we shall have failed but when we fall
the Russian nation steps into our shoes Like ourselves
th ey will covet and justly covet a place in the Sun
and do you i m agine that however li beral their ideals
may be economic pressure will not in the end force
them to S take their all on the same desperate thr ow for
World Empire that we are makin g 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 l ast and most dan gerous
counter attack but we can meet it with a crushing reply
for it rests on an entire misconception of the Russian
Empire s economi c character
Germany by the
density of her population th e nature of her physical
resources and her geographical position and extent
inevitably came into line with the Western nations of
Europe an d was forced into industrial competition
with them under exasperatingly disadvantageous con
The economic structure of the Russian
ditio ns
Empire belongs to a diff erent type altogether
Beyond the densely populated highly-organised little
states of Europe which at present focus in thems elves
th e civilisation of the world by drawing all its raw
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328
T H E RUSS IA N E MP IRE
marks an epoch in the expan sion of the Russian nation
as important as that marked by the first trans con
tin en tal railways of North Ameri ca for the e xp ans ion
of the Angl o - Saxon race
During the seventeenth century wh en the French
e xplorers were penetrating up th e St Lawrence into
th e Great Lakes and discovering portages to th e Ohio
an d Mississippi that brought t h eir canoes on to the river
system of t h e Me xican gulf Cossack adventurers h ad
alr eady crossed the Urals and worked th eir way along
th e equall y magnificent water routes of Northern Asia
up the Obi an d Angara rivers across Lake Baikal and
then down th e Amur to th e shores of th e Pacific
Like Great B ritain h owever in Australia the Russian
Government at first found no better use for this vacan t
land th at h ad fallen so casually into the ir han ds than to
1
rele g ate th eir convicts to th e Siberian mines and Siberia
has become the b y word for a desolate place of torment
like th e frozen Zone in Dante s Hell But in the nin e
teen th century the e xpandin g peasantry of Gr eat Russia
began to cross th e m iddle Volga and a current of
E astward migration set in among them as stron g as
t hat which carried the American squatters across the
A llegh an ies into th e pr airies of the West
Any one wh o
h as read To lstoy s tale of the l and hungry peas ant who
abandoned one plot after another for still larger allot
ments furth er East till at last he struck a bargain with
th e wandering B ashkirs and fell a victim to h is own
gr eed will recognise the analo gy at once and mentally
translate the scene into incidents of the forties wh en
Mormon settlers bought up the huntin g-groun ds of
Red Indi an chiefs
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Th e on l y wea lth o f th e cou n try th ey th o u gh t o f explo itin g , beside
th e f u r o f its fo rest creatu res
1
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E XPANS ION
329
Here as in America colonisation h as followed th e
railway and now the peasant is establishing himself on
either side of the new line right across Siberia The
experience 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 agri culture and breaking up the surface
of the soil Siberia will be the Canada of the twentieth
century A l ready 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
b aikalia will yield greater we alth still when their timber
and m ines are exploited to their full capacity
The human wealth of the new territories is even
more promising th an their material prospects The
criminal convict has not proved a bad foundation for
the new Anglo Saxon nation of the Australian common
wealth but a considerable proportion of the Siberian
convicts have been political o ff enders that is t h e most
independent energetic 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 settled in the country for ever have mingled with
th e stock of the Cossack trappers an d already produced
a racial variety ch aracterised by the same enterprisin g
qualities as distinguis h the Westerner in th e United
States
Th e territories strung along th e railway th en h ave
as great a future before th em as the Western provin ces
of th e Canadian Dominion As they fill with a vigorous
population of Russian speech th ey will gradually claim
Home Rule an d take their place by the side of Holy
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TH E RUSS I AN EM PIRE
330
Russia
herself an d th e lesser nationaliti es of th e
Western border as independent members of th e
decentralised Empire Just as in C anada moreover
settlement and exploitation will push further North
from th eir base line along the railway th an is at present
conceived possible moving down the course of th e great
rivers til l they reach an imp assable limit in th e frozen
tundras That however will not be th e end of Siberia s
e xpansion : she h as already stretch ed out her hands
toward the South
The settlement after the Japanese War left under
Russian control the North ern section of Manchuria
through which her railway takes a direct line from
Lake B aikal to Vladiv o sto ck while the recent rev o lu
tion in Chin a gave the pastoral tribes of Outer Mongolia
an opportunity to thr ow o ff Chinese suzerainty and
place themselves under Russian protection It would
be a gain to civi lisation if these territories were per
m an en tly and in formal terms annexed to the Russian
Empire Chin a s sole title to them is their conquest by
th e Manchu dynasty two an d a half centuries ago
She h as done nothing to improve their condition all
th e time they have been in her power and now th at
she has undertaken that t ask of internal reconstruction
which will demand a century of devoted concentration
if it is to be carried through they can be noth ing
but a drag upon her ill -spared stren gth In takin g
them over once for all Russia would have th e precedent
of the United States which compelled Mexico to cede
h er neglected North ern territories in 1 847 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 th e broad
zone of th e Gobi desert while its frontier again st the
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THE RUSS IAN EMP IRE
332
need th e bloody vengeance of th e Chinese armies to
crus h th e people s soul ; it was bein g crushed alr e ady
by the losin g figh t again st th e physical environment
Th e Tarim basin is undergoing a long drawn -out
process of desiccation Every year th e streams that
flow inwards from the snow covered mountain s pene
trate less deep in to th e basin s centr e and are stifled by
the desert after a shorter course while the sand blown
forward by th e constan t North East wind in great wave
ridges many miles long engulf s every year a fresh vill age
and buries another patch of cultivation The battle
ag ain st 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
modern civilisation at its command could stem th e
s and waves by emban kments and plan tations 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 ground Only
Russia can accomplish Turkestan s salvation and
Great Britain would willingly allow her a free hand
th ere if she undertook in return to make Kuen Lung
the limit of h er Southward advance and to leave Tibet
that lies beyond it under the undisputed influence of
th e Indi an Empire
Here is Russia s field of expansion for the twentieth
century She has to fill these immense empty terri
tories with th e white population their temperate climate
invites and th e ach ievement of the task will be a race
a g ain st time The population of the Empire may now
total 1 50 millions but it is S till the most thinly inhabited
of th e European states while South of the Gobi desert
lies China with perhaps three times as man y millions
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E XP A N S I O N
3 33
’
wd ed on to a space less th an a qu a rter of Ru ssia 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 th ey dread the pressure to
come Forcible exclusion will succeed for the present
because Ch ina sti ll lies in the grip of a thousand years
political paralysis ; but th e 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
wealth s C hina will strive to reorganise her n ational
life an d to bring all her immeasurable latent strength to
bear on the eff ort to win her place in the Sun (a
more titanic struggle this t h an Germany s present
endeavour) : t h e others will make haste to swell the
ranks of their white population till t h ey can muster
enough defenders to man th e wide boundaries of the
inheritance they have marked out for t h emselves and
become strong enough either to fling back China s onset
or to deter her from making it at all All the th reatened
nations— Canada th e U S A th e South American
repub lics New Zealand and Australia— will draw
together into a league to preserve th e Pacific from
Chines e domination Japan will probably join their
ranks for she is the Great 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 h er island country Russia wh o has not
even a strip of sea to protect her but is China s im
mediate continental neighbour along a vast land
frontier will actu ally be th e ch ief promoter of this
cro
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THE RUSS IAN E M P IRE
3 34
defensive en ten te for she will be exposed to the first
brunt of the Chinese attack
Under th ese cir cumstances it is quite inconceivable
that the German forecast should come true The great
Russian army of 1 9 1 4 when it has fulfill ed its task of
crushing mi litarism in Central Europe will have no
more temptation to proceed to t h e warlike conquest of
the world th an th e American armies had after they
had vindicated the Union in the S ixties Like them
it will disband to answer the call of econo m ic conquest
from the steppes and forests of th e 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 doing sin ce
1 871
Russia will send every surplus 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 th en
however triumphant be her issue from th is war she
cannot possibly become a menace to the Industrial
Grant that her strength increases
n atio n s of Europe
till s h e has it in her power to overcome their u n ited
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 with out manufactu res
there would be no value whatsoever in their possession
These considerations finally dispose of that bug bear
which h aunted British foreign policy during the nine
teen th century th e da nger 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
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TH E RUSS IAN E MP I RE
3 36
it is she th at will be th e danger to oth ers Th e problem
of Indian emigration is as serious as th at of Chinese
and the Kh yber P ass instead of being traversed b y
Russian armies march ing South will become the high
road of Indian coolies migrating Northwards to labou r
on the irrigation of the Oxus and Jaxartes b asins and
settle upon the lands their industry will h ave reclai med
from the desert
Russia then has no booty to gain from the other
”
nations of Europe
But if this is so the German
will ask why has she thrown herself into the present
struggle with the German Empire and the D u al
?
Mon archy Wh y does she regard it as she evidently
does as a supreme cri si s i n her history an issue of life
or death f What is the meaning of her passionate inter
f
The answer to these
v en tio n on Serbia s behalf
question s demands a separate chapter
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RUS S IA S NEEDS
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3 37
CHAPTER I X
RU SS
IA S N EEDS
’
WE have seen that the Russian Empire will never become
an i nd u strial an d commercial power ; but like every
oth er unit in the new international World s h e has need
of a free outlet to the high seas through which she may
transmit to foreign markets the raw produce of h er
vast continental hinterl and and supply herself with the
manufactured goods of industri al countries in return
Such outlets she has never yet obtained Till the
eigh teenth century her only port was Archangel on the
White Sea and this perhaps su fficed 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
1
year
In the year 1 700 the Baltic was a Swedish lake
and the Black Sea a Turkish one Peter and Catherine
broke the maritime monopoly of t h ese two powers and
gave Russia a sea board on both waters Odessa an d
Riga have grown in a century and a half to be m agn ifi
cent ports and would suffice in themselves for the needs
of a Russia much more high ly developed than the
present B ut 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 fatality both the natural
coastlines of Russia only introduce h er to land locked
seas and t h e narrow passage that connects each of t hem
with the great ocean spaces beyond has in eith er case
Fro m abo u t Octo ber to May
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338
RUS SIA S NEEDS
’
remained till this day outside th e frontiers of the
Russian Empire and must contin ue so to remain for
cogent re asons
(i ) The populati on of the shores in question between
which these narrow seas flow namely of the Danish
peninsula and islands on the one hand and of the
Bosphoru s and Dardanelles on the other is alien to
Russia in nationality and would in neither case wish to
become part of the Russian Empire
(ii ) Even if these populations did consent through
hope of economic advan tag e promise of politi cal
privil ege or the like to th row in their lot with Russia
the S ituation th us created would be still more u nfair
and disadvantageous to the smaller sta tes th at s hare
with Ru ssia these inland waters than it is to Russia as
it stands at present It would pl ace their commerce
completely at Russia s mercy whereas at pr esent Russia
is already formidable enough in strength and S ize to
m ake the powers in control of the straits respect her own
comm erce under ordinary circu mstances
Th e solution indicated by these considerations is that
th e co m man d of the entrances to both these seas should
be held in trust with out prejudice to the national self
government of th e populations th rough whi ch th ey flow
for all parties wi thout distin ction that are interested
in their use— primarily for all states possessing ports on
the inland se as in ques tion and secondarily for all
politi cal an d 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 S hall be able to dis cuss more effectively how this
can be done if we deal with th e two regions separately
and in detail
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RUSS IA S NEEDS
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340
of th e Gulf Stream Its impetus carries it past th e
Britis h Isles up the West co ast of Norway keep
in g the climate temperate and the sea perennially free
from drift ice at least a dozen degrees further North
1
ward than along any oth er meridian
Unfortunately for
Russia Norwegian colonists followin g the warm cu rrent
and availing the m s elves of the easy coast wise navigation
from fjord to fjord had already occupied th e whole of
this open littoral before the backwoodsmen of Novgorod
had made their laborious way overland to their illusory
sea board at Archangel The whole coast-strip as far
as the North Cape and round its corner to the Varanger
Fjord has become and remained Norw egian in nation
ality and is n o w an inalienable portion of Norway s
territory
Between this important region and the Ru ssim
frontier a broad barrier was interposed by Fin land so
long as s h e remained a Swedish provin ce but the
settlement of 1 8 1 4 endorsed an accomplished fact by
brin gin g Finland within th e Russian Empire as a self
governing national state under th e Imperial crown with
much th e same status as th e constitutional kingdom of
Po land During the whole century that has elapsed
there has been a S ilent contest on Russia s part to press
her way over Finland s carcase to a Norwegian port on
the open Atlanti c and on the part of th e Scandin avian
powers backed by Great Britain to maintain th e existin g
arrangement of constitutions and frontiers
To fortify the Scandinavian penin sul a against Russian
encroachment th e Vienn a Congress linked its two dis
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cu rren t settin g
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O n th e u rth er si e o f th e t an tic a co
o f th e
ri t ice so f ar S o u th th at
coast carries th e an gu ar
reenl an
in g o n th e rou tes et een E u ro e an d N ew
it en an g ers sh i p ing
Y or
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IN TH E B A LT IC
34 1
rd an t nationalities togeth er by a p ersonal un ion This
e xperiment h ad a more successful history th an th e
United Kingdom of the Netherlands which th e sam e
Congress welded togeth er as a bulwark again st France
1
but it collapsed finally none the less nine years ago
while on th e other side Russia has been levellin g her
path by a systematic attempt to cru s h Finnish nation
ality out of e xistence
In their politics and social life th e Finns are one
of the most highly civilised nations of Europe Th e
2
smallness of their population and th e unindustrialised
character of their economics have simplified the
problems set them to solve but within their modest
dimensions th ey h ave solved them to pe rfection The
tradition of their culture and their Lutheran re ligion
both come from Sweden and the town speople on th e
coast are stil l largely Swedish in race and language ;
but sin ce th e political connection with Sweden has been
broken the native Finnish speech which belongs to a
non In do European family th ough enriched with man y
primitive Teutonic loan words h as raised its h ead and
proved itself to possess enoug h vitality to become th e
vehicle of national development
With Russia Finland has no inward bonds of union
whatsoever neit her of religion nor of language nor of
tradition nor even of geograp h y for S h e lies away in a
corner and h er sea board besides fronting merely upon
th e Baltic is much less accessible from th e Russi an
hin terland th an are th e outl ets upon the Baltic White
Sea and B lack Sea which R u ssia possesses elsewh ere
co
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In 1 905
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Th e census taken in 1 90 1 sh o wed a to tal o f
Fin n s
S
wedes
h
o t ers.
in c u in g
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RUSS IA S NEEDS
3 42
Fin l and has simply been the victim of Russia s ambi
tion for an open port on the Norwegian coast beca u se
the eventual railway to that port must run t h rough h er
territory It is a precise repetition of th e relations
betw een th e Magyars and Croatia A small nationality
has been inalienably endowed by Geograph y with th e
fatal function of standing between a powerful nation
and a sea board to which she ardently desires access
th e stronger power has been so stupid and barbarous
as to imagin e no better mean s of satisfying her wan ts
than th e destruction of the li ttle nation th at stands in
th e way of th eir realisation ; and the latter figh tin g
desperately for life is looking round for some strong
helper wh o will bring the oppressor to his knees set
her free from all connection with him and shatter
for ever his projects for which s h e has su ff ered so
terribly
There would be poetical justice in such a co n su m m a
tion for it would be the natural outcome of the bull yin g
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 an d the Dual
Monarchy collapses Croatia will probably achi eve
complete po litical freedom from Magyar tyranny but
that she must not in such an event be allowed to use
her advantage merely to take the o ff ensive in th e racial
feud S h e must give Hungary facilities for realising all
her legitimate political desires by entering into econo m ic
But the same issue of the war
co -operation with her
for which we h ope will not eff e ct the forcib le libera
tion of Finland and this imposes all th e more urgently
upon us th e duty of securing t hat wh en t h e settlement
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R U SS IA S N EEDS
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344
Hammerfest or both according to th e lie of th e lan d
without interposing a customs -barrier at any point along
this route between th e Russ ian frontier and the open
sea
The Russophobe party in Sweden m ight still be
inclin ed to take the View that Swedish
national
honour could only be satisfied by ob tainin g a Europe an
guarantee of autonomy for Finland with in the Russian
Empire in addition to that of integrity and in d ep en d
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 Emp ire
in 1 8 1 4 yet it is gradually being nullified by the
machi avellian policy of the Imperial Government to
the same dead level of absolutism to whi ch co n stitu
tio n al Poland was reduced at a stroke in February 1 83 2
Finnish liberty can only be res cued by intervention
from outside
The facts in question are unfortunately true but the
foundation upon them of such a proposal would be
open to very grave obje ctions In th e 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 h umi liation in the present The case
of Fin lan d is radically dif ferent from that of Norway
and Sweden The two latter countries are entirely
external to th e Russian Empire and the guarantee we
are demanding for them in no way a ff ects 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
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1
Th e last section of this railway will in an y case b e a diffi cu lt en gin eer
ing p ro
blem : see m ap o f Eu rop ean N atio nalities (VI L)
.
IN THE BA L T IC
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 against Norway and Sweden is only
to be imposed in return 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 u n
warrantable political leverage in this quarter unless
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 will of
the guarantors but the mutual advantage of the parties
a ff ected 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 Pol and 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
simultaneous ext ension 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 th em that it would actually be in Russia s
interest to suggest such a guarantee herself even if no
oth er party took the initiative in order to make sure of
rallying to h er flag th e whole Polish nation In th at
case she would be conceding autonomy to h alf a
nationality already subject to her in order to obtain the
willing co operation of the whole Finland h owever has
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3 46
RUS S IA S NEED S
no irredenta beyond th e Russian frontier wh ich could
be made the basis of a bargain 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 o ff by any correspondin g g ain
on Russia s part Th e element of reciprocity would be
lacking and the swallowing of such an unsweetened pill
would implant a d angerous resentment in the heart of
the Russian nation
Yet even supposing th at Russia would not only
submit in this question to the dictation of Europe but
would also recover from the resentment it at fir st
aroused we learnt from our d is cussion of the Hungari an
and Tch ech problems that the intrusion of an inter
national scaffoldin g in the structure of an in dependent
political unit so far from being a salutary prin ciple is
a dangerous e xtemporisation It is only to be employed
as a p is a ller when some particular national house is too
seriously divided against itself to stand on its own
foundations and cannot be allowed to collapse with out
involvin g the whole European block in its ruin
The assumption underlying the federation of a
number of di ff erent nations wit hin a sin gle politi cal
group like the Russian Empire is that while th ey are
severally involved with one another too closely to
disengage for the ms elves a completely independent
po litical e xistence they possess a co m mon interest and
a common unity which sharply sunder their develop
ment as a group from that of all other groups or units
outside their comm on frontier If Russia and Finland
cannot adjust their diff erences entirely between them
selves without th eintervention of an e xternal guarantee
the Empire in which they are nominally federated
becomes an unreality for the guarantee will prise its
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348
RUSS IA S NEE DS
Your proposed railway to the Atlantic
a critic
would object
will only provide a clumsy and cir
cu ito u s chan nel of communication between Russia an d
the outer World Russia will always find the most
direct an d by far the cheapest passage for the flow of
trade be tween her o wn frontiers an d the commercial
highways of the Atlantic not by railway transit overlan d
to a foreign port on the open Ocean but by shipment
from the ports on h er Balti c coast down th e water
passage th at communicates with th e North Sea through
the Baltic s narrow mouths These entran ces of the
Bal tic th e natural outlet for the vast hinterland of
Russia are at present at the mercy of th e German navy
I can answer o ff hand the first of the two ques tions
whi ch gave rise to this chapter Russia h as entered upon
this struggle against Germany with all her national
might to realise an objec t vi tal to her national existence
the liberation of the Baltic Sea from German control
Her relations with Scandinavia and Finland will cer
tain ly require settlement and you are right to devote
attention to th em neverth eless they are of altoge ther
secondary im portan ce If our hopes are fulfil led an d
the Allies win this war Russia s most just an d most
urgent mandate to th e Peace Conference will be the
removal from th e strategical points of vantage in th e
Baltic of this German pirate wh o menaces the peaceful
commerce of all other nations with ports upon the
Baltic coastline
The satisfaction of Russia s demand is the problem
before you and till you have solved it you will not
have quench ed the well spring of dissension between
th e German and Russian nations Again and again it
will spring up into war while even your Atlantic railway
will turn from an alleviation into a new danger Russia
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I N THE B A LT IC
349
if sh e is 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 th e
Western seas but will attempt to repeat on her railway
to th e Norwegian coast the policy S h e devised at the
begi nni ng of the century in Man churia S he will seek
to turn her free port into a fortified naval base an d the
dan ger of Tromso or Hammerfest developing into an
Atlan tic Port Arth ur may fin ally 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 th e sieges of Sebastopol and of Port Arthur
itself Such may be the consequences of indecision
now In the question of the Baltic the future 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 h is 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 th e sta tus quo
to Germany s detriment and that it is therefore doubly
importan t in this instance sympath etically to bear in
mind h er nation al point of view and scrupulously to
avoid all wan ton o ffence to h er honour and interest
He will probably accept our proposal with assurance
and launch out in to h is disquisition with studied
moderatio n
In the first place he will begin
the in d ep en d
ence and neutrality of Denmark must be guaranteed
by Europe and the guarantors must further subsidise
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RUS S IA S NEEDS
3 50
h er to a su fi cien t e xtent to enable h er to carry out
h er in ternational duties e f fectively Her task is to
1
fortify th e three ch ann els between th e Danish islands
an d th e peninsulas of Jutlan d and Sweden that connect
th e waters of the Baltic with the North Sea an d also the
approach es to th ese chan n els at either end with such
formidable batteries on land and torpedo flo tillas on
sea that she will be able to move on any fleet that
attempts to blockade th em or seal them up with mines
Denmark would have every reason for fulfil ling th is
task h onourably and impartially The national inde
p en d en ce guaranteed her in consideration of it is th e
only remaining object of her foreign poli cy wh en once
s h e has recovered her national unity by th e restoration
of Schl eswig ; and the only event that could endanger
that guar an tee would be another attempt by a S ingle
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 in to collusion with th e
crim inal and th e kn owledge of her incorruptibility
would go far to discourage the design
“ But Denmark cannot perform this function suc
cessf u lly so long as the Kiel Canal is at the disposal
of th e German navy and th erefore some permanent
arrangement must be made th at will put it in Denmark s
power in the event of war at once to h inder German
”
warships from passing throug h it
He will admit the fact which we have already estab
lish ed th at the whole province of Holstein throug h
whic h the Canal ru ns is German in nationality and
can not be cut away from the United Germ an sta te
and he will therefore hesitate to propose the S implest
solution w hich would be to bring the territory on either
Great B el t L ttl e B elt an d S o u n d
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RUSS IA S NEED S
3 52
Nations like indiv iduals enter into competition
with one another very un equally equipped in respect
bo th of natural and of acquired advanta ges : like
in div iduals they must accept the conditions as th ey
find them n either makin g th eir own lack a justification
for robbing by force their neighbour s su p erflu ity nor
usin g th eir own strength to tyrannise over their neigh
bour s weakness So far as the Kiel Canal gives
Germany an economic pull in th e commercial competi
tion of the Bal tic she has a right to make use of it
Russia if we win the war must not be allowed to take
this advan tage from her but so far as it puts it in h er
power by naval force to paralyse whenever she likes th e
entire commerce of other nations whose only outlet is
th rough the Baltic and the commerce of th e whole
World in so far as it wishes to do business with the
nations in question it is a stumbling block to Justice
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 an d profits of the
Canal shal l be left in Germany s hands but (c) t h e
”
strategic control shall be taken from her
Having thus explained h is standpoint he will pro ceed
to formulate his proposals
We can destroy G er
many s naval command of the Can al completely by
puttin g an y single vital poin t along its course into the
possession of some alien military power We mus t
choose a poin t wh ich 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 th e power which commands that c annot
help commandin g likewise Germany s chief artery of
O cean traff i c th e estuary of the Elbe We are accord
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IN THE BALT IC
3 53
in gly left with Kiel , and th e rig h t power to hold Kiel in
trust for Europe is clearly th e policeman Denmark
Denmark must maintain at Europe s expense a ring
of th e heaviest fortifications covering Kiel itself and
th e last section of th e Canal where it enters Kiel Haven
enablin g her at an y moment to blo ck 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 th us putting the Canal out of gear for
This fortified area in Dan is h
an indefinite period
hands must be secured by a margin broader than the
range of the most powerful S iege artille ry which shall
be under the milita ry authority of the Danish and not
of the German general staff
1
The boundary of th is zone s hould start from the
Dano German frontier you h ave already delimited
between Eckern f Ord e Bay and the Eider at a point just
West of th e Schleswig Rendsburg railway and should
proceed Southwards parallel to the railway crossing
the Canal at a point just West of Rendsburg Thence
it S h ould run Sout h East to the Brah m See , then East
to t h e B o thkam p er See then North East t h rough the
Post and S elen ter Seen in a direct line to the Baltic
leaving th e town of Preetz outside
The administration of the Canal itself its upkeep and
its traff i c both outside the zone and within it must in
any case remain in th e hands of the German government
and if possible the population of the Zone should be
included no less th an the rest of Holstein within the
politica l organ isation of th e German Empire for all
purposes of civil self government in spite of th e
exceptional statu s of th e territory in the military sph ere
S ee m ap facin g p 48
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RUSS IA S NEEDS
3 54
But if such absolute separation between th e military and
the civil control of a district is in practice impossible and
military exigencies require that both administrations
S hould be united in the hands of the same government
then th ere is no choice but to detach this strip of
Holstein altogether from the body of Germany and
allow a plebis cite of the population to decide between
direct incorporation in Denmark or Home Rule
under the Danish government always leaving in the
h ands of the German nation full property rights over
”
th e Can al th roughout its whole leng th
With th ese suggestions our critic will conclude and
it will be our turn once more to pass judgment We may
firs t commend his fairn ess and moderation and admit
our conviction that he has herein stated the strict
minimum of precautions necessary to ensure 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 th e Baltic is concerned
it will under such an arran gement make no d ifference
whether Germany reverses her aggressive po licy or
continues in her present courses But the B altic ques
tion is only one factor however importan t in the
problem of European peace For that problem s
general solution the future mood of Germany is of more
direct and vi tal import ance still and no Balti c settle
ment however perfect in itself is worth the cost of
driving Germany into exasperation in the hour of her
spiritual crisis when other influences have so fair a
prospect of in clin ing her in to 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
Germany s national ar m ament and while we hope that
one of the results of the settlement will be a s caling
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35
RUS SIA S NEED S
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T his would be to infli ct an injustice on one nation
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 whi ch have combined to ignite the present war
Just as those had caused war in the past so even were
they all eli m inated in the settlement this alone would be
a new and most e ffi cacious stimulus to war in the future
The spectacle of Kiel under the military control of
Denmark would be a perpetual incitement to German y
to take up arms The more intricate fortifications
Denmark threw up and the heavier guns she placed
in position be h in d th em the more grimly Germany
would toil to constru ct artillery heavier still and to open
lines of attack that would more than counter the Dan ish
lines of defence and the more bitterly she would hate the
Concert of Europe that provided the Dan ish staff with
the material means for carrying out its commission
and th at brought pressure to bear upon the Danish
government whenever the latter in dicated its wis h to
resign an in ternational office which involved it in u n
requited responsibility and danger We should wi tness
a competition of armaments and an aggravation of
national anta go n ism more naked and dire ct th an an y we
have experienced yet the crisis would be pre cipita ted
by th e harsh treatment of the German population at
Kiel provoked by their natural recalcitrance towards
Danish administration and their eager co llusion with
the German S py bureau or else by the imminent
completion of a Russian programme for building up
behind th e Danish bulwark a Baltic fleet more than
strong enoug h to cope with the German naval force in
th ese in land waters now isolated strategically from its
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IN T HE BALT IC
3 57
sister squadron in th e North Sea Eith er or both of
these causes would drive Germany to throw down the
gauntlet once more to th e rest of Europe not th is time
in hope but in despair
The remedy then for the German command of th e
Baltic entrances would almost certainly be worse than
the malady itse lf and we find ourselves placed in a
dilemma : if we leave the Kiel Can al in the hands of
th e German navy we cheat Russia of one of the chief
objects for which s h e fought this war and fail to remove
a stumblin g block to her peaceful progress in the future
if we take the Canal out of Germany s strategic control
we can not avoid measures that must exasperate her and
create a n ew obstacle to her spiritual conversion W e
have it seems to choose the lesser of two evils
In this choice of dubious alternatives we have one
clear beacon Mechanical manipulations of geographical
frontiers and political statuses possess we agree but a
secondary virtue the sure foundation of Peace lies in
the direct production of a healthy S tate of consciousness
in all the nations of Europe If we adopt the former
alternative and do not alter the present status of the
Canal we aff ord the German nation the most favourable
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 aggrav at
ing instead of alleviating her diseased nationalism while
Russia s satisfaction instead of providing a natural cure
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3 58
’
RUSS IA S NEEDS
’
for Germany s sickness would obvi ously promote it
S till further in exact proportion to its own intensity
We conclude accordingly that we shall best serve th e
cause of ultimate peace if w e oppose ourselves to such
a drasti c blow at Germany s national strength and pride
as th e mi litary con fiscation of Ki el Our judgment is
tenta tive but at least it seems to have logic on its S ide
for it is surely inconsistent to say to Germany in th e
s ame breath
Europe expects of you that you will
ch an ge your heart because th at is her only hope of
”
securing Peace for the future and Europe regre ts
that she is obliged to take measures for th e security of
her P eace in case you S hould not change your heart
”
after all
If we approach Germany in this insincere
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 o i those small nations that
contribute much to European civili sation and her
conservation Wi ll be a benefit to all Europe as well as a
partial solution of th e Baltic question But the transfer
to Denmark of Kiel th ough necessary for the im
mediate solution o f that question in its entirety must be
rejected because it would impose upon Germany a
humiliation much less j ustifiable and much more acute
th an th at which we are proposing to spare Russia in
th e case of Finland
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B Th e L ib era tion of th e B la ck S ea
.
We have answered one of the questions Wi th which
we started this chapter : Russia is fighting Germany
now for the liberation of th e Baltic from German naval
3 60
’
RUSS IA S NEED S
itself singularly obtuse to the psychology of nations
It h as disastrously neglected t h e factor of Russia s
disinterested national enthusias m in its esti mate of
military forces H u man motives are always complex
and Germany was led into this miscalculation by con
cen tratin g her attention on a real though subordin ate
aspe ct of Russia s intervention in the Balkans The
concerted action in those quarters of Austrian and
Turkish rule does not merely challenge Russia s knight
errantry by blighting the growth of the small Balkan
nationalities it dire ctly injures her economic interests
by blocking the e xit from the Black Sea while every step
the Balkan nations gain with Russia s assistance is a
further step forward for Russia herse lf on the road to
the open Mediterranean
The Germans argue that Russia is preparing
patriarchal despotism under the cloak of fraternal
and that if they are beaten in t h is war
co operation
the only result for the Balkans will be to substitute
Russian for Austrian domination
”
We will not deny they say
that Austria in
declaring war intended to seize the railway to Salonika
and annex the whole territory through whi ch it runs
as far as the lEgean but if Russia wins S h e will annex
the whole Eastern coas t of the Black Sea and both
shores of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles While she Will
incorporate Roumani a and Bulgaria in her empire
in order to lead through them a railway of her own to
”
the Sea of Marmora or th e E 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
argu ment is not altogether groundless
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3 61
IN T HE B LA CK S EA
If the prophecy really came true it would be a grave
misfortune both to Germany and the Balkan states
themselves and a violation of national rights and wishes
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
(i ) The grouping of the six Balkan states into a
Z ollverein
which may develop into a defensive
alliance
(ii ) The maintenance of this zollverein s economic
links with Germany th rough Trieste and the creation
of new links with Russia through Odessa
(iii ) The complete settlement of racial disputes
between the Balkan League and the Russian Empire
by th e 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
—
th e Balkans would be merely a means the Liberation
of th e Black Sea
T he entrance to the Black Sea h as been the str ongest
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 destroyin g instantaneously
the most ma gnifi cent battles hip
The first section of the passage is the Bosphorus
a winding strait eighteen miles long and varying
from 700 to 3 500 yards in width wi th a strong
outward current flowing through it and steep bluff s
overhanging it on either side At the furt h er end of
its European shore the hills sink and a splendid harbour
”
th e Golden Horn ru ns inland protected from the
more open waters of the Sea of Marmora by the peni n
sula on which Constantinople stands The passage
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3 62
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RUSS IA S NEED S
of about 1 50 miles down the Sea of Marmora from the
Golden Horn to the beginning of the Dardanelles forms
th e second section ; the D ardanelles themselves are
the last These straits are forty miles long : their
1
average breadth is considerably greater than that of
the Bosphoru s but at the decisive strategical point
between Kilid Bah r and Kaleh i Sultaniyeh they
narrow to 1 400 yards and inside this line their ampler
win dings provide good anchorage for large wars hips
at Nagara and at Gallipoli When you have put th e
Dardanelles behind you you have still to clear th e
channel between Im bros and Tenedos islands before
you really reach the open waters of the [Egean
The free use of thi s extremely di fficult waterway is
of vital importance to all states possessing ports on
th e Black Sea principally of course to Russia who
depends entirely on this route for the export of her
Wh eat and h er petr oleum but likewise to Roumania
and Bulgaria in their degree And yet control of the
whole passage remains in the hands of Turkey th e least
civi lised of all the Black Sea states and the only one of
them who has no commerce of her own to give her a
legitimate interest in the waterway s economi c utilisa
tion
Moreover she takes unscrupulous advantage
of its incomparable strategic qualities to push a policy
of adventure even more dangerous to the Peace of
Europe than the national chauvinism of Germans and
Magyars T urkish chauvinism has no ideas behind it
or objectives in front of it and is conducted with a
travesty of opportunism by ignorant and ill educated
men
The Turks have held th is waterway for five hundred
years They seized it first by the right of s trong
Thr ee to f u r m l es
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3 64
RUS SIA S NEED S
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not demand more than is just boilers only explode if
you refuse to open th e safety valve
In the Black Sea then as in the Balti c we ha ve to
devise some organ for holding th e entrance in trust for
th e states that have po rts on the Black Sea coast an d
for th e commerce of th e whole World In one way th e
question is simpler here : there is no back doo r like
the Kiel Canal be tween Black Sea an d [Egean and we
ha ve only the single passage to consider Turkey h as
sunk no capital in improvin g th at and we need have
no compunction in throwing her out neck and crop
with out compensation In anoth er way it is more
difficult Turkey does not merely control th e B lack
Sea as Germany controls the Baltic : she is in act u al
possession of the strategical points and there is h ere no
respectable impartial policeman like Denmark waiting
on th e spot and ready to take up his duties as soon as he
is commissioned Turkey cannot without a European
catastrop he be entrusted an y longer with the poin ts in
question but when we eject her we shal l have to
organ ise a brand n ew administration in her stead let
us begin by de fin ing exactly the territories to be
forfeited
(i ) To control the Bosphorus the New Administration
must take over both its S hores and also th e S hores of th e
Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea for a certa in distance
along both th e European and th e Asiatic S ide of eith er
entran ce to th e Straits The European territory s hould
in clude th e whole district of Constantinople as far as its
boun dary again st th e vilayet of Adrianople th at is up
to a line leaving th e Marmora coast midway between
Eregli an d Silivri crossing th e Adri anople Constantin ople
railway half way between Chorlu an d Chataldja and
proceeding North to the Black Sea coast between
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IN TH E BLACK S EA
365
and O rm an lu Th e frontier of the Asiatic
territory should start from D ered j e on the North ern
S hore of the Gulf of Ismid and run N N E till it hits
the Black Sea coast at Kilia
(ii ) In th e Sea of Marmora all the islands and with
them th e peninsula of Artaki (Kapu Dagh) should pass
to th e New Administration
(iii ) At the Dardanelles it should be given authority
on th e Asiatic side over the whole district of Bigha
West of a line S tarting from the Gulf of
(the Troad
Edremid at a point on its North shore on the same
meridian as Aivali an d passing first over the summit of
Mount Ida and th en 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
Thraci an Ch erso n n esu s
but su fficient hinterland to cover the peninsula s neck
where it is lowest narrowest and strategically most
vulnerable The line h ere should leave the lEgean
at Iv rid j e burun on the North s h ore of th e Gulf of
Xeros run North East along the summit of the Kuru
Dagh cross the Sayan Dere just below Em erli and
thence proceed due East over the summit of Mount
Pyrgos to Ganos on the Marmora coast
(iv ) In the [Egean the Administration S hould receive
the islan ds of Imbros and Tenedos whi ch were left in
Turkey s possession by th e Peace of London because
they play an essential part in th e comman d of the
Dardanelles
Th e population of these districts is very diverse in
nationality Th e peasants of th e Troad the largest
continuous mass of land within the Territory form a
solid Turkish block only broken by a few Greek
enclaves along the s h ore of the Dardanelles and of the
Istran d j a
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3 66
RUSS IA S NEED S
Edremid Gulf The isl ands on the other h and are
purely Greek but their area is small Constantinople
which together with its suburbs accounts for t h e great
majority of the Territory s inhabitants is the most
cosmopolitan City in the World
When the Turks conquered her in th e fifteenth
century she was the focus of Greek nationality and
civilisation and the modern kingdom of Hellas which
regards 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
harboured the government of the
stan tin o p le h as
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 thi s 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
perhaps
per cent of the total p o p u la
1
tion so that it is hardly superior numerically while
decidedly inferior in wealth to the flourishing Armenian
colony
It is true that the present Turkish majority is largely
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1
Th e
p resen t p o p latio n o f Co nstan tin o ple is e tim ated as fo llo ws
Mo l m
G eks
Arm ians
Fo e g s bj e ts
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O th ers
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368
RUS S IA S NEEDS
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but its military importance for th e rest of Europe
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
(i ) We might simply demolish all existin g f o rtifica
tions and organ ise 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 ar med
to s cramble for their occupation we could not o ffer a
more potent apple of discord
The freedom of vitally important international
communications can only be secu red by a mi litary
sanction so form i dable that no in d ividual nation will
have the means to challenge it and it is Utopian to
expect th at th e several nations of Europe will consent to
that simultaneous reduction of armaments which is th e
goal of our h opes They will not do this till t h e balan ce
of armaments h as already s hifted from national to inter
national control and the military force of the individual
states has ceased to be (what it unde n iably has been until
now) the decisive factor in the political destin y of the
World
Artificial compacts cannot in the ms elves 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 all the
resources they actually command Wh en Sparta and
Argos proposed to settle their di fferences by a tournay
between three hundred chosen champions from either
city the Argive champions won ; but the result was
reversed when th e Whole Spartan army rushed in to the
rescu e of their comrades and took the more honour
able Argive army o ff its guard Fair play could only
have been secured if the lists had been commanded by
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IN THE BLACK S EA
3 69
a dozen twentieth century troops with a mach ine gun
Contracts are only effective if there is a power in the
backg round that makes it worth neither p arty s while to
break their plighted word
The necessary preliminary th en to the reduction of
national armaments in Europe is the establishment of
oth er armaments controlled by some agency acting
from an impartial international point of view at the
—
strategical keys of Europe points which have such
military stren gth innate in their geographical disposi
tion that a comp aratively small force stationed there
to bind or to loose than
can act more decisively
the largest forces of which the separate European nations
or groups 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 mi litary positions and we have a similar
duty to discharge at t h e Black Sea Straits
(ii ) Our problem then unfolds itself as th e co
ordin ation o f a strong international military organisation
with th e local Greek civil government of the Straits
Territory Obviously the most desirable solution would
be th at 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
extend to the m ilitary sphere and the friction between
the native civil adm inistration and th e alien military
aut horities which we anticipated in the Kiel enclave
would be more serious here in proportion to the wider
territory and larger population aff ected But u n f o r
tu n ately wh ile the interests of Denmark and Europe
coincide those of Europe and the proposed Autonomous
Gr eek State do not
National self consciousness
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RUS S IA S NEED S
3 70
makes Denmark wish for independence and the
guarantee the territorial gains and th e armament
subsidy give her the best means of securing it but the
same inspiration of national feeling will make the
Greeks of the Straits Territory naturally and j ustly
desirous of union with and absorption in the Kingdom
of Hellas
Th is is another instance where a minority must
su ff er If the Autonomous State had it in its power
to vote by plebis cite for union with the Kingdom a
majority would inevitably be secured for that motion
and either Russia or Turkey or both would make the act
a casus b elli against Greece or even against the whole
B alkan League because it would falsify the expecta
tions under which they had originally consented to the
liberation and internationalisation of the Straits Even
if war were averted for the moment it would break out
in the end The acquisition by the Balkan League of
this new asset would encourage it to start a policy of
adventure (the politi cal sense of th e Balkan people is
still in its infancy) or worse still the enlarged Gr eece
would break off from the Zollverein and begin a still
more extravagant career on its own account The
Greek population of the Straits Territory must accord
in gly suffer and while enjoying local autonomy must
forego the consummation of its national ideal Yet we
cannot expect the Greek temperament to su f fer gladly
We have the experience of Krete to warn us where
Unionist activity made itself a nuisance to Europe for a
dozen years till union was achieved and the fact that
separation was a wantonly inflicted evil in that case and
is a necessary evil in this only makes it more imperative
that in this c ase the arrangement should be unswervin gly
maintain ed The fortification of the Straits is essential
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RUSS IA S NEED S
3 72
to th e policy of the several national governments , to
whom these contingents belong
A fortress dem ands th e entire loyalty of its garrison
th e kindling in th em of a common spirit as strong as
that of a warship s crew It is essential to its efi cien cy
that it S hould work smoothly under centralised direction
and th at knowledge of its organisation and functionin g
should be the directorate s monopoly Yet th is loyalty
which shows its colour most crudely in the m ilitary
sphere but is likewise the background of all social life is
in modern Europe monopolised by the national state
and men cannot serve two spiritual masters The
supreme commandant supposing that th e diplomati c
custom were followed as usual and the appoin tment
devolved automati cally upon the cloyen of the contingent
comm anders would feel that he held the post in trust
for his government ( a point of view the oth er govern
ments would not endorse ) Each member of h is com
p o site general stafl instead of s h aring a professional
enth usiasm for their common duty would feel hi mself
to be an a ttaché retained on the spot by his parti cular
government to report upon the secrets of his colleagues
Th e contingents the ms elves would feel little respect for
th eir superiors and would regard the various position s
with whi ch they were entrusted as precious additions
to the sacred soil of their respective fatherlands
(iv ) A co m mandant sta f f and personnel that had
no prior all egiance would be relieved from this fals e
position and it might seem possible by recruiting
citizens of all European states individuall y and o ff ering
them a life long car eer to build up a service with a
tradition and a professional pride of its own Experience
however is discouraging Since n ational loyalty still
holds th e field some form of national service will attra ct
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IN THE BLACK SEA
373
the nation s best men and th ose that choose to bestow
their ener gies 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
Papal Z ouaves
sisten tly evil reputation and even th e
in the middle of last century were notorious for th eir
bad behaviour though they were inspired not merely
by mercenary motives but by a spiritual cause whi ch
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
1
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 stren gth and
not a weakness a spur to emulation and not a paralysing
blight among the cosmopolitan Knights of St John
2
in their last heroic defence of Rhodes
Yet at that
very time the Most Christian King of France was o ff er
ing his harbour of Toulon to the Turkish fleet because
the Ottoman power was the greatest thorn in the side
of his nation s Hapsburg enemy The National Idea
was replacing (e cumenical an archy by parochial peace
and unity and it was a symbolic incident wh en in
1 798
the armada of th e French Republic One and
Indivisible on its way to the conquest and conciliation
of an enfeebled E gypt e xtinguished the rule of the
Hospitallers Order in its fin al refuge the island of Malta
Fall o f Acre 1 2 91 A D
Fall o f Rho des 1 52 2 A D
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RUSS IA S NEED S
3 74
We h ope for the birth of a loyalty and an ideal that
shall overshadow Nationality in its prime even more
completely than th e 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 co m ing for they wi ll have no
virtue in them until they have received its baptism
(v ) For the guardianship of the Black Sea Strai ts
then we must fall back upon the services of so me
single existing national state Though there is none
in this case that h as a S pecial interest of its o wn identi cal
with the general interest o f Europe as Denmark has
in the Baltic we may at least hope to fin d one with no
special interest adverse to the interest of Europe which
we may induce to undertake the impartial conduct of
the task for the general advantage
As the question is primarily a European concern
it would be re asonable to choose a European state
for the commission ; and since the Great Powers
are ex hyp o th esi ruled out (the whole problem arisin g
from their mutual rivalry ) our choice must light
upon some minor nation
But here too the prece
dents are disquieting
The Belgian customs -service
and the Swedish gendarmerie introduced into Persia
to establish strong government have not been equal to
their task there They have no natural connection with
the country an d no power of influencing its destiny
on their own initiative that power lies with Russia and
India the great armed states imme di ately beyond its
frontiers The Persian population realises thi s and
rightly regards the Belgian and Swedish administrators
as secondary agents put in by Russia and Great
Britain as a S topgap to shelve the settlement of their
own rival ambitions The two services therefore lack
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3 76
RUSS IA S NEEDS
foreign policy to incur no politi cal obligations across
th e Atlantic and they will be more eager th an ever to
maintain thi s prin ciple now that they have seen what
volcanoes underlie Europe s smiling surface
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
ch ann el and yet circumstances have been too strong
for her In the present crisis we have been carried
into th e storm centre of t h e struggle and America
herself whi le she has avoided war has by no means
es caped the effects of it The financial business of New
York no less than that of London is at a standstill
She must take to heart the lesson of t his catastrop h e
and realise t h at for her too t h e phase of splendid
isolation has come to an end The present hurri cane
has bereft the ship of International Peace of h er 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 S A would be performing an act of international
generosity wh ich would be the proudest record in th eir
history but th ey would also be consulting th eir true
interest whi ch is fundamentally identi cal with th e
interest of united Europe Th ey would be helping to
assure universal peace
From the objective point of view there is no doubt
th at they are admirably qualified to undertake the task
They have no private interest in the Black Sea Strai ts
and t h ey are one of th e strongest powers in the world
their decisions would th erefore pass unchallenged by
especially as the self-denying side
all parties a f fected
of the Monroe Do ctrine a nd t h e attitude they are main
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IN T HE BLAC K SEA
3 77
taining in th e present war h ave won the U S A an
imperishable reputation for impartiality Moreover
they have intimate connections with t h e population of
the Territory Since the close of last century the most
enterprising and able bodied peasants all over Eastern
Europe h ave been finding their way across the Atlantic
undergoing the industrial metamorphosis and returning
h ome with smart coats on their backs strong boots on
th eir feet and hard money in their pockets to preach
the good tidings of this Eldorado in the West A meri ca
is an even more present reality in the minds of the vast
uneducated majority in Turkey and the Balkans than
are th e p o wers of Europe in the calculations of the semi
educated minority that controls their politics Yet
America has a strong footing among this important
class as well for the only th orough secondary education
up to the modern civilised standard that the inhabitants
of these countries can obtain Without resorting to the
foreign universities of Central and Western Europe is
given by Robert College the famous American f o u n da
tion on the European s h ore of the Bosphorus which
opens its doors to S tudents of all religions and n atio n ali
1
ties and has been for years a beacon light amid an
inco n s cionable welter of hatreds and particularisms
The relations therefore between the American ad m in is
tratio n and the autonomous population of the Territory
would be founded upon a strong tradition of respect and
good will
We conclude th at America is the only power in the
world capable of accomplishing this m ission and that
th e omens are in favour of her accomplishing it well
This fo u n datio n f o r m en is su pplem en ted by th e A m erican Co llege
It was o rigin ally o p en ed
f o r wo m en o n th e Asiatic sid e o f th e S traits
f o r C h istian g ir ls o f all n atio n al ties within th e Tu rkish Em pire b u t
Mo slem s too hav e recen tly b egu n to sen d th ei r dau gh ters there
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3 78
’
RUS S IA S NEED S
The true solution then of th e Black Sea problem would
be for Europe to throw herself on the Uni ted Sta tes
mercy an d ask them to accept her com m ission unti l
she has built up among her various nationalities that
common European patriotism which alone can give her
the spiritual force to admi ni ster the trust herself Those
acqu ainted with the Ameri can political outlook wi ll
probably object that it is Utopian to propose such an
issue however desir able it might be ; yet even if th e
logical conclusion to which our argument has led us is
no more than a red u ctio a d ab su rd u m of the prevailing
national antagonisms of Europe it will at least point
the moral that Europe can only be saved by her own
e ff orts 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 ru in
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3 80
THE D ISMANTL ING OF TU RK EY
is a sprinkling of Tur kis h vill ages th rough out an d
a considerable Bulgarian element in its mountainous
North West corner Greek Irredentism has naturally
and quite justly kept the whole region inscribed on
its book of claims Most of t h ose clai ms are already
satisfied or else in process of satisfaction but Thr ace is
probably destined to remain a bad debt The decisive
factor h ere is Geograp hy and it assigns the territory
unmistakably to Bulgaria
The natural route of egress from the Bulgarian
hinterland to a door on the [Egean follows the lines of
the Maritsa and its tributaries from their sources an d
from over t h e watershed beyond to their triple junction
at Adrianople and then proceeds due Southwards along
the united stream to the ports of A in o s and D ed eagatch
on the East and West flanks of its mouth
Adrianople was b u ilt with the express strategical
purpose of blocking thi s route It was the bulwark
of the venerable Byzantine Empire against Bulgaria
in h er Spring and since the Berlin T reaty it has been
th e bulwark of a Turkey galvanised into life against a
Bulgaria miraculously re arisen from the dead For
a few months in 1 9 1 3 Bulgaria for th e first time in her
history held the coveted prize in h er grip to lose it
again by her own folly when the Turkis h army quietly
r e occupied the fortress during the war she h ad wanto n ly
provoked with her former alli es The compromise
which Turkey forced upon Bulgaria in h er e xtremity
confirmed the retroces sion of Adrianople and Kirk
Ki lisse (its strategic complement) to the Turkish
Empire and t h ough Bulgaria retained the ZEgean coast
strip between the mouths of the Mesta and the Maritsa
for practica l purposes her road to the sea was cut o ff
again as e ffectually as ever
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3 81
THRACE
Near the Western end of that co ast there is the excel
lent harbour o f Porto Lagos backed by the fertile
tobacco g rowing plain of Xanthi but this district
is separated from the upper valley of the Maritsa by
the immense barrier of the Rhodope mountains and
though from the port a narrow gauge railway might
be engineered across them through G im irdj in a Kir
djali and Haskev i to Philippopolis it could never any
more than the Bosnian railway become a main artery
of commerce The main economic route must con
tin u e 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 D ed eagatch the port westward of its
mouth
This railway was purposely led by the Turkish
military authorities through the ring of the Adrianople
forts an d th us t h ough D ed eagatch itself has passed into
Bulgaria s possession together with the Right bank of the
Maritsa below Adrianople its rai lway 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 th e Bulgarian frontier
but th e low country suitable for railway engineering
between the river and the Eastern b astions of Rhodope
is narrow an d ith e Turkish military authorities quite
justifiably insisted in including within their frontier as
rectified by the compromise a wide radius of territory
beyond the Adrianople forts on the Right banks of the
Tu n dj a and the Maritsa on the ground th at its pos
session was essential to the defence of Adrianople
itself This zone stretches right up among the moun
tain spurs th e loop line would have to be carried by a
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3 82
THE D ISMANTL ING OF TURKEY
tou r de fo rce 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
Adrian ople itself
This simply proves that Adrianople excellently fulfils
its object and that so long as it remains in Turkey s
hands free communi cation with the ZEgean 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 - mili ta ry and the eco
nomic control in diff erent hands but a similar solution is
in th is case impossible because the Turkish government
is too uncivilised and uneducated to refrain on the least
temptation from exploiting the brute force we should be
leaving at its command Unless S h e can prove some
strategical necessity more pressing th an Bulgaria s
economi c need for an outlet on the lEgean Turkey
must evacuate Adrianople altogether Ti ll now she
has been able to allege the defence of the Dardanelles
and Constantinople but when we have relieved her of
th at duty by placing these positions in the keeping of a
power and under the sanction of a concert of powers
t h at neither Bulgaria nor the united Balka n League
would venture to impugn the case for her presence at
Adrianople falls to the ground and nothing remains
but to rescue Thrace at once from that misgovern ment
which Turkish chauvinism has aggravated during the
past year in its impotent thirst for revenge
The incorporation of Thrace in Bulgaria will not
benefit the latter country only : it will vastly improve
the condition of t h e whole population of Thrace Th e
Greek elements will have to abandon their dream of
national reunion which in the bitterness of the Second
Balkan War made them prefer the return of Turkish
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3 83
T HRACE
anarchy because it is by nature transitory to B u lgarian
government th at is too e ffi cient not to strike roots But
meanwhile the Turk has made th em su ff er for their
fin e drawn policy of possessin g th eir souls i n p atience
He h as goaded th em beyond h uman endurance and
given such a foil to the Bulgar th at t h ey may actually
hail him once more as a deliverer as they hailed h i m
first in the Autumn of 1 9 1 2
Certainly if we can install Bulgarian government in
Thrace again with the good will of the Greek population
it will make the future easier for all parties concerned
but after their atrocious behaviour in the Second Balkan
War t his is al most more than the Bulgarians deserve
We must not rely on good feeling alone to settle the
Thracian question but must safeguard the Greeks
in th e province by the strictest guarantees for their
national individuality In fact this is the least we
can do to satisfy public opinion in th e kingdom o f
Hellas which h as not yet risen to the insight of the
country s political good genius the premier Ven ezelo s
He indeed recognises that the solution of all Balkan
problems lies in compromises rationally concluded
and honourably observed and was always willin g to
leave under Bulgarian rule the Greek population of
the Maritsa basin if Bulgaria in return agreed that
the villages of her own nationality in the hinterland of
Salonika should pass to Greece The result of Bul
garia s uncompromising nationalism was the Second
Balkan War by which Greece got more than her due
and Bulgaria lost much of what she could justly claim
The proposed arrangement would at last make t h e
balance even and allow t h e two nations to forget t h e
regrettable relations of t h e past
The Turkish el ements would actually have less cause
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THE D ISMANTLING O F T URKEY
3 84
for dreading the change th an the Greek The Turk
has found by experience that good government by the
foreigner and the infidel is a happier lot than th e Dark
Age of his native regime and the Bulgars have been as
successful in reconciling and assimilati n g their Mosl em
fellow citizens of whom there are large numbers in the
North Easter n parts of the country as the Austrian s have
been in Bosnia or the Russians in Turkestan When
every Christian peasant in Bulgaria was call ed to the
colours in the Summ er of 1 91 2 the Moslem neighbour
whose se rvices 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 Thr ace pass under Bulgarian administra
tion , their loyalty to their new country will soon be
equally intense
The Bulgarians have no incentive to treat this
minority ill : the battle of Lule Burg as settled old
scores and after th e joint occupation of Salonika the
Greek eclipsed th e Turk as the national rival Protests
will come not from th e local Moslems but from Turkish
natio n alism across th e Straits Adrianople was for a
century th e capit al of th e Ottoman State and the tombs
of the Sultans are t h ere : th e sop histica ted O ttoman
cl aims them as national monuments and the ci ty in
whi ch th ey stand as inalienable Ottoman soil No
apter example could be found of the argument from
h is tori cal sentiment and we have only to classify this
fallacy in order to dismiss it from consideration The
desire of a livin g population and not the pride of dead
conquerors must settle the destiny of Adrianople and
it will not settle it in favour of the T urkish Empire In
Bulgaria s h an ds the tombs will be as well tended as th e
Whole provin ce
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3 86
THE D ISMAN T L ING OF T URKEY
European group that has followed a very individual
development of its own an d produced a voluminous
though chiefly ecclesiasti cal literature Fin ally there is
th e common tra d ition of a political independence w hich
endured almost unbroken for tw elve centuries and
occasionally played a decisive part in the history of the
World
Unhappily this tradition was e xtinguished more
than eight centuries ago Since then the only ad m in is
trativ e bond uniting th e Armenian people has been the
organisation of their national Church an d the nation s
history has resembled that of the Jews Th e Arme
Th ey
n ian s in Dispersion have prospered exceedingly
have shown an adaptability capable of assimilating
European ways of life not merely the social super
ficialities achieved by the Young T urks but the solid
foundations of spiritual ideas and techn i cal ski ll ; and
they have found the energy to turn their acquisitions
to account by rivallin g and even outstripping their
European teachers in the economic exploitation of the
Nearer East Their recent evolution has b ridged the
gulf between Asiatic and European an d like the rise
of Japan tends to prove that the contrast between
Oriental and Occidental does not express under
lying di fference of temperament so much as di ff erence
of phase in an identi cal process of growt h
Japan however in her awakening has m ainly utilised
the politi cal line of advance wh ile the political con
dition of the Armenian peasant who has stayed at h ome
in his native mountain valleys h as steadily been going
fr om bad to worse Moslem government has given
the advantage to his Moslem neighbours from th e
Z agro s mountains on the South East the quite bar
barous nomadic Kurdish clans ; and during the last
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ARME N IA
generation of the nineteenth century the regime of
Abdul Hamid converted this inevitable tendency
towards o fficial partiality into a deliberate policy of
in fla m in g a racial feud and destroying the Armenian
nationality in the co n flagratio n The Kurdish chiefs
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
n ian s were let loose on the Serbs in the valley of the
White Drin Village after village of native peasants has
been laid desolate th at 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 i dle squalid and unruly
The Armenian Dispersion lavishes its wealth in
building schools supporting refugees and stemming
wherever 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 under the new
regime than under the old for the administration cannot
easily recall rifles recklessly delivered into Kurdish
hands even if it has the will to do so while Young
Turkis h chauvinism looks askance at the Armenians
success and contemplates their disappearance with
satisfaction
The civilised World cannot aff ord to let these out
rages continue and if th e two Central European powers
that have so far secured Turkey impunity are defeated
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3 88
THE D ISMANTL ING OF TURKEY
in the present war the whole territory where this state
of things prevails must be severed from th e Turkish
Empire at once
The true solution of the Armeni an question is for
tunately not difli cu lt to discern There is no possi
b ility yet of national self-government : the Armenian
peasantry constitutes o nl y one half of the population
in th is re gion it is defenceless an d it is cr u shed by
persecution Th e first requisite is efli cien t govern
ment inexorably just and irresistibly strong which wil l
carry out the serious military t ask of d is arming and
pacif ying th e Kurds and proceed to establis h law and
order throughout the land Under the shadow of such
a government both races woul d for the first time be
free to incre ase multiply and inh erit this portion of
the earth accordin g to their respective talents an d
capacities
Strong gove rnment
of just the kind required
e xists al ready immediately across t h e frontier and
a large sect i on of the Armenian popul ation h as long
prospered under it It h as been the fashion in
England to depreciate the Russian administration in
”
the Caucasus
It was imposed we say
by re
len tl ess warfare against small native mountain tribes
struggl in g for their freedom and this sacrifice of blood
has not been justified by its results On th e one han d
order is far from being perfectl y established (we re
member the racial riots between Armenians an d T atars
at Baku in 1 904
and on the oth er hand the national
development not o n ly of savage mountaineers but of
civilised Georgian s and Armenians h as been stifled
Th o u gh th ey are n o t a fair exam ple to cite sin ce th ey were d u e to
th e transi to ry p has e o f an archy w hich swep t d urin g th ese years o v er
th e w ho l e Ru ssian Em p ire while agai nst th em m ust b e set m an y d eca d es
o f co n tin u ou sly efi cien t a dm in istratio n
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THE D ISMAN T L ING OF TURKEY
3 90
decentr alised after enlargement at the expe n se of
th e Russian frontier ; but as in Thrace the T urks
th emselves h ave e ffectually shattered su ch del usions
an d th ere is not an Armenian now in the Tu rkis h
provinces wh o does not pray for the coming of Russia
Etch m iad zin the ecclesiastical capital of the nation
is already in Russian territory an d even wh il e
Armenian political idealism still had a Turkish orienta
tion th e actu al political centre of gravity was auto
m atically s hifting across the frontier
The Armenian
husb andman when the b arrenness of the mountain s
and the ferociousness of the Kurds drive him to seek
his fortune abroad naturally gravitates to t h e most
favourable market for his energies He has found it in
Ru ssian Caucasia and t his is the best testimony of all
to th e virtue of Russian rule Tiflis the an cient
capital of th e Georgi an nation has become practically
an Armenian city bo asting al most as l arge an Armeni an
colony as Constantinople whil e the population of th e
native Armenian districts on the Russian side of the
frontier is now about a quarter as large again as the
Armenian population in the Turkis h provinces East
of th e Eup h rates and North of the T igris though it
1
occupies a territory of less than half this area
We mu st therefore attempt to bring wit hin the
Russian frontier all Turkish territory where th e funda
mental population is Armenian and where this p o p u la
tion s prosperity is being r u ined by th e leg alised
aggression of the Kurds
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1
Arm enian po pu la tio n in T flis
Arm e i po p lat o in C o ns tan tin o p le
Arm nia po p latio n in Ru ssian p o vin ces A khaltsik
N achi t h ev an S h usa
Kars Al exa d o po l Eriv
A r m em a po p l ti
in Tu kis h territor y Wi thin lim i ts
i
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S ped fied
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ARMENIA
39 1
This territorial settlement of the national question
must take due account of the geographical factor, an d
it would begin by assigning Trebizond to the Russian
Empire because a great caravan route starts from th at
port across the mountains through Baiburt to Erzeroum
in the Armenian interior The L azic population of
the coast strip though it is not itself Armenian is
not Turkish either but akin to the Georgians of
2
the Caucasus
The frontier shoul d accordingl y start
from Tireboli on the South coast of the Black Sea West
of Trebizond and ru n due South excluding Karahissar
to the West till it strikes the upper reach of the Kara S u
Western Euphrates
at a point below Erzingan
Thence it should follow the course of the Euphrates
Southwards as far as Telek wh ere the river hits the
Taurus range running East and West and sl ashes its
way through the mountain barrier in a long tortu o us
gorge impassable for human traffic
The Armenian race is not confined to the Eastern
bank of t h e Eup h rates Wh en the Tur kish 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 T aurus further West where the Sihun ( Sarus ) and
Jih u n (Pyramus) come down Southwards between
parallel mountain lines to the pl ain of Adana and th e
Here they founded a kingdom of Little Armenia
sea
which threw in its lot with the Latin princip alities
carved out by the first Crusade and took its full share
in the losing battle against the returning tide of Islam
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VI
S ee M ap
1
eo rgian ro m
D i eren ce o f re i gi o n , ho e er, re en ts L aze an d
Th e L azes are Mos em
sh ar in g a co m m o n n atio na co nsciou sn ess
1
ff
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THE D ISMANTL ING O F T URK EY
3 92
All th e Christian states alike were e xtinguis h ed in
th e fourteenth century but the population did not peris h
with th e kingdom and t h e Ar meni ans have h eld th eir
ground to this day in th eir second h ome Th ey have
moreover been reinforced by that more recent exp ansion
from th e orig inal motherl and which h as not aff ected
this South Eastern corner of Anatolia alone but has
endowed the urban centres throughout the whole
Eastern half of th e peninsula with strong Armenian
colonies
Yet in spite of th eir vigour and their in creasing
numbers th e Armenians h ave not made Eastern
Anatol ia their own Th e Turkis h substratum remains
the preponderant el ement West of Euphrates as the
Ar menian E ast of the river and thou gh the memory of
t h e terrible Adana massa cres perpetr ated under t h e
Young Turkish re gime in
will cause us to take
the most stringent precautions for safeguardin g the
Armenian nationality in the territories l eft under Turkish
government it must not blind us to the actual numeri cal
proportion between th e two races in this region Ex cept
where professional b rigands are subsidised for th e task
like the Kurds across the river it is only very weak
minorities that su ffer massacre
what tempted the
Turkis h masses to the crime and justified it in their
o wn eyes was the sense t h at they were in an immense
majority and the hope th at one determined stroke of
brute violence might rid them altogether of these h ated
progressive alien tares in their uniform Moslem field
In execrating their action we must not forget that the
facts on which they based it remain roughly true
Havin g reach ed the gorge of Telek the new frontier
sh ould leave the L eft bank of the Euphrates and proceed
L ess than a year after th e proclam atio n o f th e Co n stitu tion
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THE D ISMANTL ING O F T UR K EY
394
the Mesopotamian plain and the seat of their patriarch
has been estab lished since t h en at Julamerk on th e
highes t reach of th e Greater Z ab Most of the refugees
however have not tarried on th e Western slope of the
mountains but h ave crossed th e watershed into th e
U ru m ia b asin where th ey form th e exclusive pop u lation
of a compact dis tri ct on the West shore of the lake
Latterly th e Chaldaeans have been exposed even more
cruelly than the Armenians to Kurdish barbarity an d
about half their villages on Lake U ru m ia have abandoned
their alle giance to the patriarch at Julamerk and
accepted the O rthodox creed in order to secure t h e
protection of Russia The inauguration of Russian
“strong government
is in fact as essential to th e
survival of th e Chaldaeans as it is to that of the Armenians
and th e only solution is to in clude within the Russi an
frontier th e whole area inh abited by this race in addition
to the Armeni an platea u
Th e distribution of the Ch ald a an s however com
While
pletely cuts across e xisting political divisions
Julamerk is in Ottoman territory the U ru m ia b asin
th e nation s centre of gravity belongs to Persia an d
th e Turco-P ersian frontier follows the summit of the
If t h en the whole Ch ald x an nation is
Zagro s range
to be u nited under Ru ssia s z gis the Russian frontier
will have to be advanced at th e expense of Persia as
well as at the expense of Turkey
Fortunately th ere is no obstacl e to this for Azer
baij an th e North Westernmost province of Persia
within which the Uru m ia basin lies has no national
2
connection with the state in whi ch it is at present
L ike th e Arm enian Kath o li kos at Etch m iadzin h e is th e p o litical
as w ell as th e r el ig io u s h ea d o f th e na ti o n
D uri n g th e S xteen th an d sev en teen th cen tu ries t sev eral tim es
ch an ged h an ds b etw een P ers a an d Tu rk e
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ARMENIA
3 95
politically incorporated While the Ch ald z an s o ccupy
the Western side of the lake the valleys th at drain into
it from th e East one of which contains the important
town of Tabriz are inhabited by an equally compa ct
popul ation of Tatars who were deposited there by the
Mongol dominion of t he fourteenth century and speak
a variety of the wide -spread Tur kish tong ue These
h ave as little sympathy as the Ch ald x an s with their
Persian masters on the South whose Iranian language
they do not understand and whose Sh iah heresy they
detest A ll th eir 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 whole population of the province appreciates
the strong government and the economi c progress
1
which the de fa cto Russian occupation h as 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 th e gorge between t h e Tor Abdin and Judi Dagh
ran g es 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 T urco Persian fronti er at a point on the
same parallel as the South end of Lake U ru m ia After
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1
S in ce 1 909, wh en th e an archy o f th e P ersian Revo l u tio n led_Ru ssia
d a fo rce acro ss th e f o n tier in to Azerba j an wh ere th e S tu atio n
was sp ecially acu te
to sen
r
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i
,
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THE D ISMAN T LING O F TURKEY
396
i
cross n g th e e xistin g frontier line it s h ould run South
East excludin g th e wh ole basin of th e Lesser Zab
When it reach es th e thirty-sixth parallel it s h ould turn
due Eastward along the latter till it h its the head-waters
of the River Kisil Usun whose course it should follow
down continuously to its most Northerly poin t Here
where the river turns at a sh arp an gl e to the South
East the frontier shoul d break away again on a North
Easter ly course of its own and maintain it til l it hits
the present Russo Persian frontier a few mil es before
its termin u s at Astara on the Caspian S ea
The rectification of frontier we have j ust sketched
out to Russia s profit and to Turkey s and Persia s l o ss
is unimpeachable from th e point of view of t h e t erritories
and population s immediately concerned
(i ) It transfers nationaliti es whi ch owing to t h eir
geographi cal interlacement and to the lawlessness whi ch
it stimulates are in any case incapable for th e present
of governing themselves from a vicious incompetent
government whose onl y policy is to foster anarchy by
encouraging the inferior elements to exterminate th e
higher to a civilised str ong government whi ch has
already dealt successfully in the Cauc asus wit h a simil ar
problem of even more serious dimensions
This
g overnment if we place it in control will use its ex
p erien ce to secure the most enterprising receptive and
indus trious races in the region from artificial repression
by brute force
After a few generations of good government the
Arme n ian peasant will have outstri pped the Kurdish
shepherd entir ely not by another abuse of official
favouritism but by his in nate superior qualities Every
patch of so il will have been brough t under cultivation in
the valley bottoms and on th e terraced mountain-slopes
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THE D ISMANTL ING O F TURKEY
3 98
construction proceeds the frontier wi ll be found to
mark a boundary between independent systems th at
will only be crossed at a few points by trunk lines
In spite however of these undeniable merits an y
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 installin g Russia in full possession
of the Armenian 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 wi lfully break her stren gth 5
It will be su fli cien t for the moment to take these
critics entirely on their own ground and reply that from
the strategi cal point of view size of territory is not the
ultimate criterion of strength It is true that we shall
have advanced the Russian frontier half the distance
from Kars to Iskander u n but the other half still
remains and Turkey rid of her ulcers by the surgeon s
knife an d enabled to devote all her strength to building
up her internal health wi ll erect a more formidable
barrier in this comparatively narrow strip of native
territory than if she pushed a precarious e xhausting
domination over intractable alien populations as far as
the very summit of the Caucasus
(ii ) We have a much 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
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PANISLAMISM
C
.
399
Pa n isla mism
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 th eir interest has extended
beyond the limits of India to international politics and
has naturally 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
The whole continent
teen th century to Islam s loss
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 Asia
during the same period Russia which once obeyed
the T atar Khans on the Volga has subjected the last
independent Khanates along the Oxus 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
It alone in the face of all Europe prese rves
deb acle
the old tradition that the Moslem is marked out by G o d
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T HE D ISMANTLING OF TURKEY
400
to be ruler and th e Ch ris tian to be his slave and what
is more importan t still to an orthodox Indian Sunni
cut off from his fellow believers by a ring of h eathen
Sikhs and Hindus an d of heretical Persians the Otto
man state is the guardian o f the holy cities of Islam
and the Ottoman sultan by legal i n heritance th e
o fficial head of th e wh ole Faith
Th e grandeur of T urkey gives a concrete embodiment
to th e Indi an Moslems sentiment Th ey feel them
selves to be a strong community th ey have deserved
well of th e Britis h Empire and in return they justly
claim th e rig h t to make their voice h eard in its counse ls
There is no doubt th at they will exert th eir influence in
favour of the Ottoman Government s poin t of view an d
uncompromisingly resist any proposal to interfere with
the integri ty of th e Ottoman Empire as it stands at
present
We cannot neglect this attitude of P anislamism in
In dia We must examine the ideals that underlie it
and the view of existin g facts on which it is based and
if we conclude that th ese ideals wi ll not be realised
by the pro gramme of supporting the present Turkish
regime because th e real situation in Turkey does not
correspond to th e facts presupposed we must frankly
declare our belief We must try to convince Panis
lam ism of its error by argument just as we have grappled
before with the attitude of German y or with the Du al
Monarchy s ra ison d é tre
Th e real desire of Panisla mism is that th e Moslem
popu lations w hich have so far preserved th e ir in de
an dominion s hould not suc
from
C
h
risti
d
e
n
en
c
e
p
cu m b to the fate of th e ma jority but s h ould on th e
contrary so develop their material resources by e conomic
enterprise an d th eir spiritua l wealth by education as
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THE D ISMAN T L ING OF T URKEY
402
oppression of Greek and Armenian is almost out
balanced by the suf fering of th e Moslem peas ant on
whom falls th e burden of holding them down by force
1
Turkey h as only half th e population of th e smallest
of the six European powers ; S h e is in finitely poorer
than any of them in economic and so cial development
incompar ably more backward ; yet no Europe an state
exacts suc h a h eavy blo od tax from its citizens as Turkey
whose people can least aff ord it The length of service
b oth with the colours in youth and with the various
classes of reserve in later lif e is in excess of most oth er
2
conscript armies and mobilisation is far more frequent
On a partial scale to combat the never outwearied unrest
of th e subject populations it is practically chronic and it
occurs on th e grand s cale wh enever the breath of war
begin s to blow in Europe even when as in the present
crisis th e interests in volved do not naturally affect th e
Turkis h people at all Th is happens beca u se the sub
j ect populations are ever ready for the final war of
liberation and because th e neighbouring states are
always waiting for th e oppo rtunity to assist them Th ey
know too well th e Turkis h government s in curable
policy of adventure which wil l not face ac complished
facts but stil l dreams of recoverin g Mitylene and Khios
an d perhaps of re entering Salonika
Supposing that through the triumph of th e Central
European powers the Porte were to recover all th e
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l
v v b
b
p l y v
Active service W th th c lo rs
Active service in th e reser ve
Lan dwehr serv ce
Lan dsturm service
k
N o exact stati sti cs h a e e er een ta en , b u t sin ce th e territo rial
osses o f 1 9 1 2 —
1 3 th e n u m ers cann o t m u ch e cee
1
Th e term s o f co m u so r ser i ce f o r th e i n a n tr are as o ll o s
1
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i
e
o
u
x
f
d
y
f
3
6
g
2
To tal servi ce (fro m 20th to 4o th year o f age) 2 0
years
.
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PANISLAMISM
40 3
territories it held in Europe before th e Autumn of 1 9 1 2
this success would brin g the Turkis h peasant nothin g but
added misery For him it would be a S h o u lderin g of
cast off burdens he would once more spend years of
his life garri soning Macedonia far away from his family
an d his Anatolian farm to perish at last most probably
in some futile summer campaign to O ttomanise the
untamable Albanians The Turkish peasan t is dumb
he has no education or cohesion and therefore no pub lic
opinion but if he could give expression to his will in a
plebiscite he would vote for bein g left in peace and ask
for some government which would not herd his folk out
of th eir villages in thousands an d send them without
commissariat munitions of war or medical succour to
perish in the deserts of Tripoli or on the stricken field of
Lule Burgas Since he is too inarti culate to express
this it is surely th e mission of Panislamism which has
the ear of th e 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 th e Holy Cities But here again let
him try his religious sentiment in the fire of reality an d
imagine hims elf in th e place of the unhappy Turkish
conscript tran sported from his temperate upland home
in Anatolia to the m ilitary posts along that tropical
volcanic plateau of Stony Arabia over wh ich th e
Hejaz railway runs from Dam ascus to Medin a or
worse still dispatched by troop ship do wn the Red Sea
to th e terrible interminable Yemen campaign from
whic h no soldier ever returns or let him think of th e
Yemeni Arab himself Heir to an archaic civi lisation
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T HE D IS M AN T L ING OF TURKEY
404
isolated to an un paralleled degree by th e deserts h e
is not norm ally aff ected for good or evil by th e rise
an d fall of world -empires ; but now h e is d esperately
at bay against th e brutal meaningless aggression of
Turkis h Im peri alism whi ch h as no better gift for him
than for th e Armenian or the Gr eek
Th e In dian Moslem is misled by his own e xpe rience
In In dia Islam is a na tionality Its professo rs may h ave
been Arab Persian Afghan or Mogul wh en th ey came
as conquerors to the coun try yet now th ey are one
blood bound togeth er by th e common menace of Hindu
race -hatred Conditio n s are diff erent in th e Ottoman
Empire The menace of th e Unbeliever is h ere imper
f ectly re alised and national anta gonis m s fin d an arena
”
with in th e Bulwark of Is lam
O ur educated In dian
Panislamist should talk to an educated Pan arab from
Egypt if h e wishes to dis cover how Moslems of A rab
speech feel towards the po liti cal ambitions of th eir
Turkish co religionists
The E gyp tian will agree with the Indi an emp hati call y
th at th e ru le of th e European is a hu miliation for Is lam
and that British administration however beneficial or
1
even nec essary it may be for th e moment mu st be no
more th an a transitory p h ase in th e long his tory of
Egypt an d In dia ; but he will tell him that he has exp eri
en ced one thing worse th an British o ccupation and th at
was the tyr anny of th e Tu rkish o fi cial class which
Great Brita in ended j u st a generation ago
It is
”
o n ly wh en I think what we suffered from th e Turk
he will conclu de
that I can fin d it in my he art to
”
tolerate h is B ritish successor
Th e founder of Islam was an Arab He wrote h is
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Th o u gh excep t f o r th e wo r k o f th e irrigati o n en gin eers h e will have
m u ch l ess go o d to say o f i t than th e 1n d
1
,
,
406
T HE D ISMANTL ING OF TURKEY
of t h e Ho h enstaufen an d squandered th e strength of
th eir empire in purs uin g th e will o th e wisps of a dead
world s ideas
Meanwhile th e Arab revival has been paralysed by
this h eroic s ham as Ita ly was paral ysed by th e vis itations
of th e medi aeval Emperors and if the encouragement
of Indian Panislamism breath es mis chi evous confidence
into this s ham once more it will work as much woe to
all Islam Arab an d Ind ian an d Tu rk alike as th e
triump h of its accomplice the renovated German
Imperialism will work to Europe if it wins this war
Yet our Panislamist (or his Youn g Turk prote ge
speakin g t hrough his mouth ) while admitting all that
we h ave poin ted out will still put up a plea of higher
necessity for the existence and policy of th e present
Turkish regime It will be very much like the apologia
”
of Prussianism its en sam me
We confess he will
sadly begin
that Turkish Im perialism frust rates th e
m a terial advancement of the Turkish peasan t an d stunts
the national life of h is Arab fellow-subject ; but it is
their common duty to bear these disadvantages patriotic
all y for th e sake of Islam Th ey must sacrifice th em
selves to suppo rt th eir government because the Ottoma n
Em pire is the one sovereign independent state left in
Islam an d if this empire falls th e Moslem popula tions
it s afeguards will be partitioned like all their brethren
amon g th e Christian powers Such an event might
quite probably in crease the e conomic prosperity and
so cial well bein g of the individual Moslem more
rapidly for th e moment than the continuan ce of th e
O ttoman administration ; but even th e Ch ristians have
a proverb th at Man does not live by bread alone
For a mess of po tta g e th e Moslem subjects of th e
Porte would be barterin g away the birth righ t of Islam
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PANISLAMISM
40 7
making impossible the great ideal of th e future a self
go v em in g Moslem nation that shall hold its head as high
”
as the nations of Europe
If Panislamism takes up this position we mu st
undeceive it still further We do not call
Young
Tu rkey a sham merely because it taxes the stren g th
of the Turkish peasan t in order to maltreat weak
Christian nationalities in defiance of strong Christian
powers and to pose grotesquely as the successor of th e
Arab Caliphate in the captaincy of Islam In spending
th e blood tax wrung from the peasan t upon objects
entirely alien to the peasan t s in terest 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
th e Ottoman Empire itself
Th e German government takes toll of blood and iron
from th e German nation to fas hion from them a mailed
fis t 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 aggression again st their neighbours The mili
tarism of the Porte which impresses the In di an Moslem
ruins th e Turkish peasant with its wars an d
an d
rumours of wa rs has no effect wh atsoever on the des tiny
of th e Turkis h Empire Her army would not h ave
saved Turkey from annihilation sixty years ago if
England an d France had not fough t the battle against
Russia in her be half an d during the two generations
that h ave passed since then Turkey threatened with
destruction again an d again h as owed her preservation
invariably to the mutual jealousies of th e European
powers and never to th e strength of her o wn right
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40 8
THE D ISMAN T L ING O F T URKEY
arm In 1 877 th e defence of Plevna gallan t though it
was did not prevent the Russians from forcing th e
Chataldja lines a diplomati c warnin g from the oth er
powers kept th em out of Constantinople when th e forts
were down and the Treaty of Berlin rescued for Turkey
half her territories in Eu rope
The Indian Moslems must face the fact that th e Po rte
is not th e c hampion of Islam but a parasite upon the
national rivalries of Europe Turkey s fate is not in
her own hands an d whatever be the issue of th e war
that is now bein g waged between th e European powers
it will in any case expose th e T urkish s ham by puttin g
a de cisive end to Turkey s present position
But th e Pan islamist who has studied th e relation s
between th e Porte an d th e European n atio n s du ring
the last centu ry will be j ustified in forming th e very
lowest idea of European political morality The actual
su rvival of the Turkish regime until the present moment
is th e most crushing in dictment of it and the attitude
of all th e powers to th e calamities Tur kis h chauvinism
has contin ued to cause has been so uniformly selfis h
and cold blooded th at even an impartial spectator might
plausibly ignore Turkey s guilt and lay th e responsi
In dis cussing then with an
b ility at Eu rope s door
Indian Moslem th e probable behaviour of these nations
towar ds Turkey af ter th e present war is over we shall
ca rry greater conviction if we leave an y possible factor
of idealism out of th e question and assume th at all alike
will follow motives of the strictest self interest
What has Turkey to e xpe ct from the respective triumph
of the two rival groups of powers f
Ever since the rapp ro ch em en t between France and
Russia nearly twenty years ago Germany h as been
o ffering her friends hip to Turkey with increasing
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THE D ISMAN T LING OF T URKEY
41 0
’
Great B ritain s work in Australi a or New Zealand and
transform them into German lands the vitality of the
new Anglo S axon nations we have founded there is
al ready too strong
Anatolia off ers far better prospects
Its climate is equally temperate while its population
is no match yet for Europeans in numbers energy
civilis ation or any oth er facto rs of survival Turk and
Arab would vanis h away before German immigration
as the Red Indi an faded before the Anglo Saxon onrus h
in N orth Ameri ca an d th e l ast hope of Is lam would be
blasted by th e first realisation of the Pan germ an Idea
T urkey may be linked to Germany by common
antag onism towards the En ten te yet for th e Moslem
nation alities th e result of Germany s vi cto ry would be
ann ih ilation
B ut what our Panislamist will ask
if th e Alli es
are vi ctorious f You have already spoken plain ly about
dismantlin g th e T urkish Empire and if once you lay
violent h ands on its integrity I fear you wi ll not
stop ti ll you have achi eved its dismemberment You
reassure your Russophobe by promising th at his de
mands shall be satisfied an d reassure us by explaining
that the Russophobe s s tandpoint is identical with our
o wn but the flames of a war l ike th is melt down the
establis hed policies of nations You hope to forge in
this furnace a Concert of Europe Suppose you succeed
and that England France and Russia pass beyond t h e
s tage of opportunist alliance and arrive at a profound
mutual understanding : the Russophobe s point of view
will have become obsolete in a moment and th e union
of Europe will be cemented by the partition of th e
Moslem nationalities Th e opiate of compensation
dulls the ache of th e most irr econ cilable ambitions
France resigned her claims on Egypt when England
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PANISLAMISM
41 1
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 the
European fold (if their statesmanship rises to the
occasion) by o f fering her the coveted Anatolia as a
”
consolation
This is a shrewd interpellation and it does even more
than justice to our lack 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
(i ) 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
where it obtains is able to reconcile otherwise in co m
patible ambitions by giving them a neutral political
medium to work in
Th e 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
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THE D ISMANTL ING O F T U R KE Y
41 2
programme of Eng lish Russo phobia : it is one of th e
most important foundation-stones of that ideal stru ctu re
of European harmony and international peace to whi ch
Great Britain and her allies stand publi cly pledged and
which we cannot betr ay without forfeiting the sympathy
of neutrals in the present crisis and destroying all
confidence in our honour for th e future The Pan
islam is t may assure himself that not even the most
brilliant opportunity of immediate material gain would
tempt us thus to falsify our whole position while the
fact that adherence to these prin ciples is the sole mean s
of winning the Panislamist s trust and good will aff ords
a further proof to ourselves of th e proposition from
which we started that our own true interest lies in a
disinterested eff ort to secure impartial justice to all
our neigh bours It is our part then to proclaim our
solemn intention of laying this stone true and to S ketch
out a plan for fas hioning it to fit its destined place
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D Th e N ew A na to lia
.
Anato lia 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 character as Spain
An arid central uplan d is embattled against th e coast on
North an d South by p arallel S ierras cloth ed in forest
and ri ch in streams which are all engulfed after a brief
co u rse eith er by the sea on the outer flank or th e step pe
within only towards the West does the plateau sink
in long fertile river valleys to a clement S heltered
coastline
Th e abori gin al population of the region is a link
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41 4
TH E D ISMANTL ING O F TURKEY
of the ZEgean an d by th e close pro ximity of Greek
islan ds
Yet though th e Anatolian race has been converted
to the speech of its Turkish conquerors as completely
as it was converted to Hellenism before and has adopted
th e Moslem creed they carried with them it has in
formed its new religion an d nationality with its own
pe culiar spirit The
O ttoman
peasan t th us pro
d u ced has littl e in common with oth er popul ations that
hold th e same faith and speak the same tongue— Tatars
of Baku Kirghiz nomads on th e Central Asiati c steppe
or Ka sh gari villagers in Ch inese Turkestan : we can
discern much more clearly his affin i ty with th e Phrygian
or Cappadocian familiar to the ancient Greek He h as
the same stolidi ty an d lack of initiative (with th eir
complementary virtues) as antipathetic th en as now to
the Levantin e of the lEgean He has even the same
trappings of material life from his housing system down
to the conical hat an d curly toed boots that distinguish
the Hittites in Egyp tian b as reliefs and beneath this
e xterior crust burn the same volcani c fir es of religious
frenzy whi ch gave the cult of Attis and t h e Great
Mother to Hellenism and have forced upon Islam
since Anatolia entered the Moslem world the reviva
”
“
listic
e cstasy of the S pi n nin g dervish so extra
ordinarily alien to Islam s sober genius
Th e Anatolian th en h as a marked national c haracter
he is also ripe for national self government To us
the Turkis h Empire is a symbol of po litical ineptitu de
but thr ee centuries ago our ancestors looked upon th e
Sublime Porte as the most efli cien t government in
Europe and admired the solidi ty of its paved hi gh
roads and nobly arched bridges th e magnificence of its
karav an sarais mosq ues and arsenals the profe ssional
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ANATOL IA
41 5
skill of its fleets arti llery and standing army precisely
as Herodotus admired the far less ably organised empire
of Darius Sin ce then the Turk has been outstripped
by Europe but if he has stood still he has at any rate
not lost ground T o 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 Balkan s
an industrial country and the Turk will always be a
laborious peasant rather than a keen witted busin ess
man but the po litical problems set before him will be
S imple
For four centuries the country h as been in
profoun d 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 European civilisation Abdul Hamid fir st
conceived the fiendish idea of spreadin g this infection
to his Asiatic subjects yet unlike the chronic violence
of the
bands
in Macedonia the massacres of
Greeks and Armenians in the Anatolian towns h ave
not become more than hideous violations of a normal
harmony
If o fli cial chauvinism by murder forcible con
version banishment and that terrorism which leaves
no real alternative to emigration were to succeed in its
obje ct of eliminating these Christian populations from
Anatolia altogether it would be dealing as fatal a blow
to th e country s future prosperity as the Castilian
government dealt to Spain when it robbed her of her
Moors and Jews At t hat period the Porte showed its
supe riority to contemporary Christendom not merely
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41 6
THE D ISMANTLING OF TURKEY
in e fficiency but in liberality of soul by giving th e
Spanish Jews harbourage in its own commercial cities
to their contentment and to the advantage of th eir
"
adopted home Since then Ottoman o fficial circles
in contradistinction to the Ottoman nation have
deteriorated indeed They are venting the i r fury for
their Balkan defeats not only upon the Greeks of the
Thracian frontier b u t upon the entirely unimplicated
Greek population of the West coast and now that they
have plunged their country into the great European
war they may be expected to instigate fresh massacres
of their Christian subjects at any moment
This governing class wi th the hopelessly debauch ed
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 Gree ks whom it is see king to destroy
are an indispensable element in the progress of the
country They possess all the qualities of brain that
the native Anatolian lacks and they have further
improved their brains by education To begin with at
any rate the n ew Anato lian national government will
depend largely upon them for its p erso nnel and they
will render faithful service to the alien country of their
birth if she grants them the scope which their abilities
dese rve They are as able minded as are the classes
of corresponding educa tion in Europe they have
always been employed in the subordin ate grades of
the Ottoman administration and the greatness of the
Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
falls in large measure to their credit The Anatolian
Christian is the chosen vessel for th e fulfilment of th e
Panislamist s prayer the elevation of the Anatolian Turk
to an equality with the nations of Europe
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T HE D ISMAN T L ING OF TURKEY
41 8
of th e central steppe cannot be made to yield corn again
as it did in the eleventh century A D before the Turk
came till the mountain torrents have been made to
deliver their last drop of water to the husbandman by
irrigation canals below and barrage S torage in the high
valleys and ti ll reaping machinery has been imported
from Lincoln or Chicago Neither grain n o réh m etal
can be brought within reach of consumers till mine and
field h ave been put into communication by rail with the
port on th e 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 b e undertaken
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 eff ect 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 th ey had put wars of religion and
constitutional struggles behind th em and arrived at a
strong national government whi ch set them free to turn
The force
their best energies into economi c c h annels
that resides in capital t h e magic power of transforming
the earth and of conjuring wealth from its bosom has
placed the rest of th e world at Europe s feet ; but in
Turkey as in other countries that have lagged be hind
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
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ANATOL IA
41 9
on the verge of ruin an d the Greek an d Armenian town s
folk who had the intellectual and moral capaci ty 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
Th e history of exploitation in Anatolia centres round
1
the constru ction 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 th e 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 A fiu n Kara Hissar and
the English line up the parallel M man d er valley to the
2
south through Aidin to Ch iv ril and Buldur
Germany
however since she supplanted England and France in
the Porte s 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 corner of Anatolia
and makes its way Southwards past Ismid to the
plateau level at Es ki Shehr across a very difficult series
of mountain ranges among which the S an gariu s winds
in gorges Thereafter the way is plain to A fiu n Kara
Hissar and the line proceeds South East along the inner
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M 4 Th e two
S ee M ap
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VI
lin es
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h d K assaba an d
reac e
Aidin resp ectively in 1 866
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THE D ISMAN T L ING OF TURK EY
42 0
edge of Taurus through Koni a to B u lgh arlu a village
at th e foot of th e Bulghar Dagh wh ere the Tauru s wall
begins to turn North East and the railway if it is to
continue its course must pierce it by a mighty tun nel
As far as this tunnel the line has been in working order
1
for some years
Its achievement is a triumph of that
co - operation between individual capital and national
diplomacy by which modern Germany has e ffected so
much Besides pointin g the way to the promised land
beyond the Taurus it absorbs such internal trade as
already e xists in th e section of Anatolia to t h e North
East except for th e little that goes in an d out by the
Black Sea coast Connection with the French rail h ead
at A fiu n Kara Hissar is carefully avoided so t h at
all traffic which reaches that point from the East is
compelled to pass the whole way along the German line
to Skuta ri in stead of taking the natural route to Smyrna
This masterly railway is the most potent instrument
Germany has forged for diverting all new wealth tapped
in Anatolia into German pockets and finally turning the
count ry itself into a German peopled land Yet th is
policy is not peculiar to Germany It is only a p articu
larly successful instance of what all European nations
attempt with more or less singleness of aim and persever
ance so soon as a well placed loan brings a more back
ward country into their power It is usury in the most
S inister sense conducted on a national s cale
Honourable investment aims at an increase of wealth
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Th e con cession f or th e extensio n to B ag dad was sign ed in J an uary
Th e C onst an tin o pl e- Ism id sectio n was co m pl eted as early as 1 8 72 ,
1 902
1
.
ded to Kon i a after 1 888 by th e A n ato lian Railway Co m p an y
This was at first a co m b in ed G rm a o B ritish co n cern ; b u t th e
Germ an grou p soo n bou ght o u t th e B ritis h rights an d proc“eeded to
Th ey th n o rgan ised a n ew B ag dad
o b tain th e B ag da d co n cession
Railway Co m pan y to which th e An ato lian Ra lway Co m pan y
m ad e o v er th e ex ecu tio n o f th e co t act
x
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T HE D ISMAN T L ING OF T URKE Y
42 2
’
Debt Turkey s allies in the Crimean War taught h er
how to borrow in the European money m arket an d a
reckless period of extravagan ce followed When it
ter minated towards th e end of the S eventies in th e
Balkan revolt and the disastrous R u ssian War Turkey
found the purse strings closed again st her and became
un able either to meet her past obligations out of her
revenue or to in cur others to liquidate them The
result was the Decree of December 1 88 1 which con
solidated th e whole outstandin g debt handed over th e
problem of dealin g with it to a mixed comm i ttee con
sisting of delegates from the bo nd holders of all the
in terested nationalities and put at the absolute disposal
of this committee in which the Ottoman Government
itself had no footin g six classes of p u blic revenue for
the debt s service
This in ternational admin istration has wielded for a
generation a power far greater than any sin gle foreign
government has yet acqu ired in Turkey or could ever
acquire without the virtual supersession of Turkish
sovereignty ; but it has employed it entirely to th e
country s benefit just because it does not represent
th e sinister interest of national rivalry but th e common
in terest 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
in terpreted their mandate in a liberal spirit and some
of th e most fruitful economic developments th at Turkey
h as e xperienced in the meanwhile h ave been initiated
in the spheres under their control and fin an ced by
funds accumulated in their co ff ers Whatever politi cal
transformations th e Ottoman Empire may undergo
the financial authority of the In ternational A d m in is
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ANATOLIA
tratio n
42 3
must remain unimp aired not only out of
justi ce to the foreign bond holders but because its
continued activity will be the New Anatolia s best bul
wark against e xploitation by individual nations and the
best guarantee for the contin uan ce of her economic
progress on lines primarily advantageous to her o wn
citizens
But th ere are other and less legitimate for m s of
foreign privilege in Turkey which might well lapse with
th e dismantling of th e Empire or at an y rate be allowed
to drag less heavily upon the freedom of the rejuvenated
Anatolia
(i ) It is not enough to give th e new Anatolian
government judicial independence by abolishin g the
Capitul ations unless we give it fiscal independence as
well and that is at present seriously limited by a
number of treaties with th e various European powers
which fix a maximum a d va lo rem import duty for the
Turkis h Customs It m ight be argued that if European
th rift has been hit so heavily by Turkis h insolvency
it is only fair that Europe should be given the chance of
recouping herself by obtaining favoured treatment in
Turkish 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 the present
arrangement for the Customs were one of the S ix
revenues ceded to the Debt Ad m inistration an d their
augmentation would profit the European bond holders
as well as the Anatolian government Even in equity
then t h e sta tus quo has little 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
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T HE D ISMAN T L ING OF T URKEY
424
powers concerned to dis cuss their modification In
fact the Powers attitude towards Turkish fin ance has
rested latterly on their ability to exercise coercion
The time has now come to cry quits In 1 90 7 the
first step was accomplished when Turkey obtained per
mission to raise the import duty to 1 1 per cent in order
to pay for the special admi nistration of Macedonia
demanded by the Powers themselves This is a good
precedent for compensating the Anatolian government
(and its European bond holders ) for th e loss of their
most importan t 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 au thority
of the Debt Admin istration gives se curity that the con
cession would be used with prudence and even a mis
taken fis cal policy would only injure Anato lia herself
and could be reg arded with indi ff eren ce by Europe so
long as the vitall y important waterway to the Black Sea
was excluded from its sphere of operation
(ii ) The foreign railway companies in framing their
contracts with the Government have stipulated th at th e
la tter shall guaran tee th em a certain minimum of ann ual
profit calculated at so much per kilometre of permanent
way in working order The Go vernment has to make
good an y deficits on thi s amount
Considering th e poorness of th e co un try and th e
irresponsible character of the Government whi ch by its
provocative foreign policy was capable of disorganising
at any moment such trade as there was it was reason
able th at Turkey should shoulder the econo m ic co n se
1
u
of
any
political
folly
she
com
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Th e system was n o t applied to th e ear lier railway en terp rises in th e
O tto m an Em p ire It was o n ly in itiated in 1 888 , when rai lway co n
1
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42 6
THE D ISMA NT LING O F T URK EY
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 th at th ese
sections are not economically desirable in themselves
The fir st runs thr ough a desolate strip between steppe
and mountains the second is the costly tunnel which
will eat up any profits the Adana section beyond it
may bring in Their importance to Germany is political
and in as king her to resign them in exchange for
econo m i cally more advantageous openings in another
direction the Anatolian government would be safe
guarding its own interests wi thout violating the legiti
mate interests o f 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 Cappadocian region
North East of the central steppe as far as th e new
Russian frontier A branch has already thrust itself
Eastw ard from Eski Shehr to Angora Hence it could
be car ried across the Kizil Irmak River ( Halys) and
might split thereafter into two arms One would stretch
E S E through Kaisaria to Malatia on the West bank
of Euphrates skirtin g the ribs of Taurus on the North
the oth er would work its way North East through
1
Yozgat and Amasia to the Black Sea port of Samsun
Wh at nation is to step into Germany s shoes and
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Th e startlin g advan ta ge g ain ed by Germ an y in th e An ato lian Rail
way co n tract led Ru ssia to o b tain an agreem en t fro m Tu r k ey reservin g
to h er o wn en terp rise th e co ns tru ctio n o f all rai l ways in An ato lia that
1
ho u ld d ebo u ch o n th e B lack S ea co ast A s yet h o wev er, sh e h as
tak en n o a dv an ta g e o f this co n cessio n an d if sh e g ain ed th e p ro po sed
s t an d S o u th sh e m igh t
extens io n o f h er C au casian fro n tier to th e We
fair ly b e asked to ab an do n eco n o m ic in terests in An ato lia o u ts ide this
a l an d eco n o m ic con tro l
n ewy li e, in ex chan g e f o r co m pl ete p o litic
n
s
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,
1115 1d e It.
,
A NA T O L IA
42 7
secure for its own investors the right to buy out
the German company s interest in the Konia—
Adana
section t Every consideration suggests Italy Italy
has suffered even more than Germany by being handi
capped in the European race Her Abyssinian adv en
ture was disastrous ; her recent acquisition on the
North African coast gives her a very li m ited 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 Anatolia s 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 communication through the Taurus
with the central plateau One branch of the new Adalia
railway would run
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 th e same management
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42 8
THE D ISMAN T LING OF T URKEY
We have suggested the partition of Anatolian railway
enterprise among companies of four different n atio n ali
ties French English German and Italian co ordinat
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 th e governments behind
th em instead of regardin g their econo mi c presence in
An atolia as the thin end of a politi cal wedge must
count it all gain that they find scope for their enterprise
there at all and resign themselves to see their hold
diminish annually as the country is gradually raised
by their agency towards the level of native wealth which
will en able it in the end to dispense with their services
altogether 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 p erso nnel of her own
Turkey will have reached her majority and fulfilled
the Panislamist s dre am by takin g her stand on an equal
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 th e 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 ) Th e islands off the Anatolian coast fall into
three divisions
(a) The group along the Northern section of the West
coast which is entirely Greek in nation ality and was
conquered by the Kingdom of Hellas in the late Balkan
War It consists of M itylin i Khios Psara Samos
and Nikaria In sp i te o f the Young Turk chauvinists
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THE D ISMAN T LING OF TURKEY
43 0
B ritain in June 1 878 after the close of th e Russo
T urkish war and on the eve of the Berlin Congress
Th e Russian victory had al armed Great Britain for
the safety of her Mediterranean route to India She
th erefore arranged with the Porte that if Russia retained
th e Armenian fortress of Kars in th e settlement the
island of Cyprus should be placed in British hands
The legal sovereignty was to remain with the Sultan
and Great Britain undert ook in return to guarantee the
integrity of the Sultan s continental do minions in Asia
within whatever frontiers were fixed at th e 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 th e Levantine coast
even should the guarantee
prove abortive the occupation of Cyprus left Great
Britain in strategical comm and of the situation
At the rupture of peace however th e Berlin Treaty
lapsed with all its corollaries and Cyprus was formally
1
annexed to the British Empire
Russophobes will rejoice at th e step because it brin gs
Cyprus completely under our control
According to
”
your own proposals they will say
the resettlement
after th e present war is to advance the Russian frontier
right across th e Armenian plateau at least half th e
d istance towards the Mediterranean S hore This makes
the retention of Cyprus more important to Great Britain
”
than ever it was before
Yet the problems of Cyprus and Armenia are com
on
a
par
In
both
the
national
fac
t
or
is
at
l
l
e
t
e
p
y
This tran sf er o f legal so vereign ty to th e actu a l po ssesso r was p ar all el
It was m erely a form al
to th e A us trian ann exa ti o n o f Bo snia in 1 90 8
A stria ho wev er was at p ace with T key w hen sh e to o k th e
act
step an d th e efo e acted in Vi o latio n o f v alid o b ligatio ns
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ANATOLIA
43 1
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 s h all choose th e
former alternative if we are wise
T he island has benefited much by our strong govern
ment (a process of disinfection which every count ry
needs to go through when it passes out of Turkish rule )
but that phase is now almost past The population is
Greek in language and civilisation and is becoming
1
more and more so in national aspiration
It cannot
be separated permanently from th e Greek national
state At some moment Great Britain must gracefully
retire and we should allay irritation if we were to
proclaim forthwith under what circumstances we should
consent to do so The natural term to fix would be th e
moment when Anatolia buys out her foreign railways
Wh en she has so far recruited h er native economic
S trength
she will aff ord such an effective strategical
bulwark for th e British route to India that the Russo
b
h
o
e
will
S
leep
in
peace
at
last
p
Th us all the islands o ff t h e Anatolian coast would
pass eventually into th e 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 ple asure Anatolia would virtu
ally b e subjected to a continuous blockade The pass
age from Smyrna itself to the open sea would be liable
at an y moment to be closed by flo tillas acting from
M itylin i and Khios on either flank In han ding over
therefore to Greece the islands nowin Italian o ccu patio n
Europe should stipulate that not only they but those
acquired by Greece in 1 9 1 2 and also Cyprus whenever
Th e p op u latio n was
in 1 90 1 o f who m 22 % were Mo sl em
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THE D ISMAN T L ING O F T U R KE Y
43 2
she may acquire it shall be neutralised from the mi litary
point of view Greece on her part must pro m ise Europe
to leave them u n f o rtified and Europe on hers must
guarantee their perpetual political union with Greece
When thi s is done it will be bo th 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 th e configuration of the country The
1
line should start from the Mediterran ean coast at Ras
a l Hanzir the cape that conta ins the Gulf of Iskanderun
on the South Eas t It should run first North East and
then North along the summit of th e A m an u s range
parallel to the coast of the gulf and only a few m iles
distant from it thus assignin g Iskanderun itself to
Anatolia When it reaches the latitude of the most
Northerly poin t in the gu lf it should turn East cross
the valley of the Kara S u 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 d irection till it reached the lati tude
in which the Euphrates makes its great bend from a
Westerly to a Southerly course below Sams at At thi s
poin t it should turn due East and head for the Euphrates
striking it just at the bend
This lin e leaves a fringe of Turkish population outside
but the distri cts thi s m inority inhabits are geograp hic
ally dep endent o n the great Arabic city of Aleppo and
cannot be sundered from it politically
S ee Map VI
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THE D ISMANTLING O F T UR KEY
43 4
of th e In lan d Sea to surrender it in life giving rain wh en
th ey strike Lebanon an d the Hill country of Judah
on its e xtreme shore Syria s h ares the climate and
vegetation of Southern Europe but the Hejaz w hich
continues the line of Syri a towar ds th e South East
is backed by nothin g better th an the Red Sea a sul try
creek separated from the Atlanti c by the vast breadth
of the Sahara Here the desert h as no redeemin g
Western frin ge and th e strip of coast beneath the moun
tain wall along which lie the ports of the Holy Cities
of Islam is the most cruel country in the whole region
In this stern theatr e has been played the world —
drama
of the Semiti c Race Bred in the keen air of the pitiless
plateaux whi ch gives men th e fire of vitality without th e
fuel to maintain it the Semitic nations in wave after
wave have surged down in to the arena of Irak or beaten
upwards again st th e breakwater of th e Syrian mounta ins
to scatter th emselves in spray over all the Mediterranean
shores The last and mightiest of these cataclys ms
was Islam whose tide in the seventh century A D swept
out from th e Hejaz over th e world and though it has
long since receded from its furthest marks it has settled
permanently over thi s origin al Semitic area and given
it its final colour both in religion and nationality
In S pite of a few surviving outcrops of earlier strata
the present population of the region is as homogeneous
as its permanent geographical structu re Arabic S peech
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 th e
Syrian town s has sent representatives of considerable
political abili ty to the Ottoman parliament and is no
less capable than th e Anatolian Turk of carryin g on the
functions of self government on its o wn account Its
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A RAB IA
43 5
constructive efforts will be immensely reinforced
by the co operation of ta lented and highly educated
volunteers from Arabic lands like Egypt and Algeria
whose populations have enjoyed th e benefit of European
”
strong government and will welcome the o ppo r
tu n ity of propagating its fruits without its thorns in this
new independent focus of Arabic tradition Moreover
t h e 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
Th e sovereign of the new state will become the o fficial
h ead of Islam and Arabia would do well to elect as
its first consti tutional sultan some prince of the reigning
Ottoman house who would inherit by birth the personal
claim to the Caliphate won by his ancestor Selim and
transmit it to his heirs This junior branch of th e
Ottoman line would soon eclipse its cousins who con
tin u ed to rule over Anatolia and the Arab would oust
the Turk again from the dominant place among
Mohammedan nations
Yet however much assistance th e new nation may
receive from the loyal sympathy and service of all
Islam th e task before it is not easy The Arabians
will inh erit more evil than good from the Ottoman
Empire
Europe must of course free them from th e bondage
of th e Capitulations and the customs treaties with the
same liberality for which we h ave appealed in the case
of Anatolia ; but they will have to shoulder a heavy
burden in th eir proportionate S hare of th e Ottoman
national debt and will pay for the follies of a ruling
class for which they are even less responsible than the
Anatolian peasant
o wn
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THE D IS MAN T L I NG O F T URKEY
43 6
The revenues ceded by th e decree of 1 88 1 to th e
international Admini stration of the Debt must be left
as heretofore under the Ad m inistration s control in
spite of the break in poli tical continuity The surv eil
lance o f an expert European executive over the chief
factors of native finance will indeed be as great a boon
to th e New Arab i a for many years to come as it has been
to th e mori bund Ottoman Empire duri ng the l ast
generation The nati ve 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 Chris tian m i nority falls into several groups
of which th e Maronites in Lebanon are consider
ably the most important Descended from the older
Syriac race they have preserved their dial ect an d
religion ever sin ce the Arabs brought Islam in to th e
land In the eighteenth century they entered into full
communion with the Roman Church and came thereby
into relation with France already th e leadin g Catholic
power The French influence was confirmed by th e
result of the Crimean War In 1 864 not many years
after peace had been made there was a rising of the
Maronites in defence of their pres criptive autonomy
and France insisted upon the erection of an autonomous
Lebanon vilaye t which was placed under a Christian
governor nominated by th e Porte but was also guaran
teed by Europe The Maronites constitute about th ree
1
Thanks
fif th s of the population in this favoured area
to th eir native h istory and to the French missions they
are at once th e most vigorous an d the most intelligen t
element in Syria and however optimis tic we may be
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Th er e are abou t
o f th em in
h alf a m i llio n in th e who le o f S yria
1
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th e
Leban on
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an d
perhaps
THE D ISMANTLING O F TUR KE Y
43 8
able still and th eir reduction presents th e problem of
th e Caucasus or the North West Fro ntier of India on
a small scale Th e task here will be ligh tened by th e
fact that by far th e larger section of the Kurdis h race
falls within th e sphere we have assigned to Ru ssia
so th at th e section left to A rabia will already be hemmed
in by th e strong Russian military frontier in th e North
and East when the Arabian gendarmerie attempts to
penetrate it from th e South West Even so th e opera
tion may prove beyond the new state S powers in
which case Europe must give Russia th e mandate of
acting here on Arabia s beh alf with th e S trict under
standing th at temporary military occu pation o f a distri ct
gives her no permanent political claims to it
(iii ) When Christian communities have been recon
ciled by some measure of devolution and when Kurds
an d Druses have been chastised
th e new Arabian
ad ministration will find itself in e ffective possession of
the whole Northern portion of its territory from the
Syrian co ast to the head of th e Persian Gulf This is
the only part th at counts from the economic point of
view but the uninviting South cannot simply be left
to its own devices
It is no use establishing law and
order in the cultivated lands and among the mountain
fastnesses in their midst if the Bedawin of th e desert
are S till suffered to raid them at their pleasure an d
un less the government effectively polices the pilgrim
routes to the Holy Cities which lie in the very heart
of the South it will forfeit altogether the esteem of the
Moslem world Its duty is to achi eve th ese two objects
with the least possible e xpenditure of e ff ort
A pil grim railway surveyed by Moslem en gineers
built by Moslem labour and fin an ced by th e o ff erings
of th e Faithful was completed from Damascus as f ar
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ARAB IA
43 9
Medina in
and will be carried forwar d as soon
as possible to Mekka : a further line will link Mekka
with th e port of Jidda on the Red Sea coast a way
of approach already much more frequented than the
Damascus route The railway does not merely make
the journey easier for the pilgrims it greatly simplifies
the government s task of securing their safe passage
for it gives organised troops a strategical advantage
that more than counterbalances the B ed awi s superior
2
adaptation to his native desert
To keep its garrisons
at Jidda Mekka and Medina in touch with their Syrian
base th e government need only patrol the railway and
throw strong military detachments into the nearest
oasis towns like Teima and Kaibar on the railway s
E astern flank
Further North it should occupy th e
o asis of Jof half way between Akaba and Basra
wh ere the Northward trail from Nejd emerges out
of th e Great N ef u d sand waste into the steppe land
between Damascus and Euphrates A chain of forts
h eld in Al Hasa th e province along the Arabian shore
of the Persian Gulf would protect Koweit and Basra
from South Western raiders
Havin g thus secured the routes to the Holy Cities
and th e borders of th e North ern provinces th e new
sta te would be well advised to treat th e remainder of
the Arabian peninsula as we h ave recommended the
Alb anian government to treat its mountain clans : it
s hould take the responsibi lities of sovereignty as lightly
as it can
N ejd th e heart of the plateau South of th e Great
N ef u d is divided at present into several principalities
as
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b egu n in 1 90 1
Co m par e th e u se m ad e o f a lways in th e An g lo -Egyp tian reco qu est
o f th e S o d an
1
It was
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1
r i
u
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n
T HE D ISMANTLING OF T URKEY
440
Hayyil, Kasim , Er- riad—whose rulers govern th e po p u
lation of the cases and exercise a s hadowy control over
the Bedawin tribes whi ch would sta rve if they could not
supplement the miserable produce of th eir flo cks with
th e dates of the oases palm groves
The country is
built on so vas t a scal e and the means of life and com
m u n icatio n are so s can ty that permanent occupation
even by a power th at had u nli mi ted blood and treasure
to waste upon an unprofitable adventure would
certain l y prove an impossibility and the prophet
Mohammed himself was the first and last sovereign to
attempt it till the seizure of the Holy Cities by the
Wahabi secta ries led Ibrahim Pasha the brilli ant son of
M eh em et Ali to make a compaign of reprisal For a
few years the whole of Central Ar abia was held down by
1
Egyptian garrisons but the strain was too great and
upon the first weakening of M eh em et s prestige his
Arabian Empire van is h ed in to thin air The new
Arabian government will be promotin g its o wn interest
best if it leaves B ed awi shei kh and oasis prince to keep
each other in check satisfied that so long as it holds
Jidda Basra and Damas cus in its own hand all Nejd is
ul timately amenable to its sovereignty Except through
these three gates the region can have no i ntercourse with
the outer world and can neither sell its dates and
camels abroad nor import arms or other goods of
civi lised m a nufacture without th e government s know
ledge and san ction
The same policy of non in tervention should be applied
to Asir the Red Sea provin ce immediately South of
Hejaz The population is strongly tinged with Shiism
in spite of its proximity to the hearths of Moslem
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E gyp tian o ccu p atio n o f N ejd lasted al to g eth er in varyin g
degr ees o f effectiven ess fro m 1 8 1 8 to 1 842
1
Th e
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THE D ISMANTLING OF TURKEY
442
peninsula to the Persian G u lf reach ing it at latitude
2 5 near the head of the Bahrein bay between A 1 Hofuf
and th e peninsula of Katar
In mere e xtent of territory the state whose frontiers
w e have now delim ited would contain an enormous
preponderance of irrecl aimable land inhabited by
yet as we prophesied in the
i ntractable populations
case of Armenia the continuous action of good govern
ment wil l shift the true centre of gravity more and more
”
decisively from the desert to the sown
Arabia
has a more splendid e conomic asset than any that
A lbania Armenia or even th e Anato lian plateau possess
The great alluvial pl ain of Irak is potentially one
of the most favourable environments for human life
in the world and has actually rivalled the valley of th e
Nile and th e great Chinese rivers in b ringing the earliest
civilisation to flower but its value to Man depends
upon Man s o wn mastery of it Left to thems elves
th e Tigris and Euphrates allow half th e plain to crumble
into the dust of the desert and turn th e other half into
malarial swamp as unfriendly to human habitation as
the u n reclairn ed Egyptian delta Only civilised fore
hought
and
organisation
regulat
i
ng
the
river
system
t
by a ne twork of canals can distribute the water in better
proportion and enable Irak to realise its destin y as a
cornland of marvellous capa city
From the dawn of histo ry in the fourth millennium
un til Babylon was crushed by the leaden yoke of
B C
Darius empire the irrigation of Irak was perfect and
its fertili ty th e wonder of the world Again under the
Abbasid caliphs wh o ruled from this centr e a realm
broader than Darius and revived the glories of Babylon
in their n ew city of Bagdad on the Tigris th e
provin ce enjoyed a second lease of prosperity nearly
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ARAB IA
443
five centuries long till the Mongol invasion devas tated
it in th e thirteenth century A D Since then Irak has
lain desolate like a symbol of Islamic civilisation itself
The canal system is derelict : only a few of the main
arteries are kept in working order The population has
dwindled : there are more B edawin in the land than
h usban dmen Nature has assumed her primitive face
as it was when Oannes the Sumerian culture god
first arose from th e sea ; but Nature cannot be left
unc hallenged by the twentieth century with its vast
material power and its still vaster in crease of po p u la
tion th at threatens to outstrip that power s capacity to
provide for it The Young Turk government has
already negotiated a contract for irrigation work on a
modest scale and the New Arabia must throw herself
into th e task in the grand manner Th ere is the
possibility of recovering for cultivation as many acres in
Irak as British engineering has won back in th e Punjab
during the two generations we have ruled th ere Th e
chief need will be human labour to dig th e channels
cast up the embankments and till th e new fields created
by these operations and a vast reservoir of men e xists
in the twenty four million Moslems of Bengal They
are already hard pressed for some avenue of expansion
and their religion would accommodate them without
di fficulty to the country
Wh en the fertility of Irak has been restored it must
be put in communication by railway with Arabia s chief
ports
(i ) Bagdad has heretofore communicated with the
Mediterranean by circuitous routes to the North-West
which cling to the tiny ribbon of moisture and vegetation
deposited across the Northern section of th e steppe by
the Tigris and Euphrates in their descent from the
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THE D ISMAN T LI N G OF T UR KEY
444
Armenian moun tains towards th e Gulf The harves ts
of Irak when they are reaped once more will fully
repay th e construction of a railway from Bagdad to
Damascus which will cross Euphrates and run due West
over th e s teppe The distance is under five hundred
miles less by one third than the course the German
company has surveyed from Bagdad to Iskanderun and
Damas cus lying on the inner rim of the Syrian retaining
wall near the middle point of i ts exten t is the natural
railway centre of Arabia Besides being the S tarting
poin t of the pilgrim li ne to Medi na it is already con
n ected by a full gauge railway Wi th Haifa the harbour
under Carmel s shadow and by a narrow gauge line
over Lebanon Wi th Beirut th e greates t port on th e
Syrian coast
(ii ) Immediately after i t has put Euphrates behind
it this n ew Bagdad Damascus railway will detach a
branch to the South whi ch will pass through Kerbela
S kirt th e Eastern foot of the plateau parallel with
Euphrates course touch the Shatt al Arab at Basra
and find its terminus on the Persian Gulf at
1
Koweit
(iii ) Direct connection between Bagdad and Europe
2
will be es tablished by a lin e followin g up th e Right
bank of th e Tigris as far as Mosul There it will change
direction from North Wes t to West and run across the
head waters of th e Kh ab o u r between the S injar and
Tor Abdin h i lls After passing through Harran it will
strike the Euphrates cross it by a bridge at Jerab is and
continue in the same westerly direction through the
hilly country between Aleppo and Aintab up to the wall
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Th is lin e Wi ll b e id en tical with th e last sectio n o f th e pro j ected
Germ an rai lway to th e Gu lf
Th is em b o d es an o th er p art o f th e G erm an co m pan y s idea
.
2
i
’
.
446
T HE D ISMANTL ING OF TURKEY
Anatolia ? Th ere are strong reasons for rejecting such
a proposal
In Anatolia most of the work in contemplation h as
already been put in hand on the national -syndicate
system and the majority of these contracts have been
carried to their conclusion the still unexploited areas
are appropriated by claims like the Italian wh ich
cannot be dis regarded Arabia is in a diff erent position
Even t h e most importan t operation th e irrigation of
Irak h as not yet been taken up in earnest No railway
enterprises have been pledged to foreigners except th e
few stretches in Syria already constructed by a Fren ch
company and th e A m an u s Mosul Bagdad con cession
acquired by th e Germ an group The latter would cer
tain ly be an important fact if it were a fa it a cco mp li
but so far only an insign ificant section has been built
Arabia
an d most of the course remains unsurveyed
then h as still a comparatively clean state
There is always a lurking danger that commercial
sp h eres m y develop a political character
Th is
a
would be serious enough in Anatolia but in Arabia
it would be absolutely fata l to a good understandin g
between th e nations concerned beca use in this quarter
th eir politi cal ambitions and jealousies are in finitely
more in tense
If th e French railways and missions succeeded in
tran sforming Syria in to a dependency of France the
Britis h position in Egypt would be severed from th e
Persian G u lf by a strong m ilitary power which could
lead a bran ch from the Hejaz railway to Aka ba and
esta blish th ere not merely a port in rivalry with Suez
as Arabia will doubtless do h erself but a naval base to
dispute th e control of the Red Sea If on th e oth er
hand Great B ritain eliminated France which s h e could
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ARAB IA
447
hardly do without a permanent breach in th e two
nations friendship and extended her influence from
Damascus to Bagdad and then to Koweit she would
be cutting across the path of Germany Even if Great
Britain and Germany e ffected a compromise they
would both be threatened in turn by an attempt on
Russia s part to penetrate to the Mediterranean from the
Armenian plateau through Diarbekr J erab is and Aleppo
Here are seeds of war indeed and their detection shows
that we must discover some other basis than the national
group for the conduct of these enterprises
A precedent is given by the action of four powers in
1 9 1 0 with regard to the Sse Chuan railway concession
Th e governments concerned first arranged
in Ch ina
among th emselves what proportion of the loan S hould be
allotted to the investors of their respective nations and
th en allowed the private financiers of these nations to
1
subscribe in this ratio the total capital required
In the case before us the Concert of Europe should go
a step furth er It s hould not only determine the s h are
of th e several nations before hand but should draw up
a compulsory formula for the ch arters of all th e com
an
The chief principle of this
p ies to be constituted
formula s h ould be th at each comp any must contain
s h areh olders of all the nations concerned in the propor
tion agreed upon If any company is floated in defiance
of th ese terms its contract with the Arabian govern
ment should not receive the Concert s sanction and in
case of disagreement between the two contracting parties
t h e Concert should withhold its own support and like
wise restrain individual powers from intervention
Even the contracts already concluded with national
Th e fo u r p o wers were Great B ritain Fran ce G erm an y an d th e
U S A
th e am o u n t o f cap i tal to b e ssu ed was
an d th ey
ag reed to tak e equ al sh ares
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T HE D IS M AN T LING OF TURKEY
448
groups like the French railway in Syria or the German
concession to Mosul Bagdad and Basra should be
internationalised on th e same principle The Arabian
government should buy out th e present bond holders
on favourable terms with capital supplied by th e new
1
international loan
In compensation th e two nations
which these bond holders represent should be allowed
to subscribe to th e general stock of this new loan an
excess upon th e shares respectively all otted to th em
equal to the capital of the two national companies th us
iqu id a te d
The new Arabia will not la ck investors : her economic
prospects are too good Yet if their enterprises are
organised on some such scheme as this she will not
have to make th e cruel choice between political inde
d
materi
l
well
being
She
will
see
her
d
e
n
e
an
a
n
c
e
p
national self government and her national wealth
prosper togeth er and will close to the nations of Europe
another arena of deadly strife
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1
Th e loss in cu rred by Ar ab i a in th is transfer sh o u ld b e m ade go o d
by th P o wers f Eu ro p e in th e in te ests o f E ro p ea p
e
o
r
u
n
ea ce.
P ERS IA
450
Th e Iranians have twice expressed th e racial antipathy
which generations of border warfar e and th e v icissi
tudes of empire and subjuga tion ha ve aroused in th e
creation of a national religion While the native
religious developments of th e European nations lost
th eir savour and succumbed one by one to a universal
religion of Semitic origin the Iran ian like th e Hindu
found a prophet in his own co u ntry an d unlike th e
Hindu possessed th e insig h t to pay him honour
Zarath ustra probably lived under the great Darius in
th e latter h alf of th e sixth century B C about two
generations before the incarnation of the Buddha The
reformed faith wh i ch he founded grew like the Y aweh
ism o f th e Hebrew prophets to be the distinctive mark
of his nation and the restored national kingdom which
put an end to the interlude of Greek predomin ance in
t h e t hird century A D incorporated its reli gion in a
highly organised national church
For four centu ries the national ch urch and state of
Ir an battled with the (e cumenical religion and empire
of th e Roman world without an y decisive issue Then
the avalan che of Islam overwh elmed th em both and Iran
1
was utterly submerged Zoroastrianism was pros cribed
an d the new born Arabic civilisation dominated the
nation even more strongly th an th e Greek had done
before yet Persian nationality had enough vitality to
assert itself again Wh en T urk and Mongol broke
their way into th e Moslem world the Arab went down
before them but Iran over whose corpse they trod their
road to Bagdad and Anatolia found in the general ruin
an opportunity for her own revival
Th e sch ism concernin g th e succession to the
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f
f l vo taries fo u n d f g
prosp ero u s Parsee ect
Its aith u
su r i e as th e
1
vv
re u
s
e in
.
Western In d a wh ere th ey still
i
,
P ERS IA
1
45
Caliphate which rent Islam in the second generation
of its existence had been trench antly settled against
th e h ouse of A li by the sword but a minority of stead
fast h eretics h anded down the tradition of Ali s claims
and Persia gradually became th e strongh old of th eir
opinion In th e sixteenth century A D a native Persi an
dynasty th e Sufi which adh ered to this sect swept
away th e Turkis h princelings who had divided Iran
between them since the Mongol era The plateau was
united once more in a national S tate and once more
again t h e renaissance of Iran expressed itself in religion
Th e h eresy of its kings became the belief of th e nation
and under the banner of Shiism Persia kept at bay
t h e hated T urkis h powers which h emmed h er in on
every side and uniformly professed t h e orthodox
”
Sunni fait h Ottoman Turks on the West Uzbeg
Khans upon the Oxus in the North and th e Uzbegs
Mogul cousins who h ad carved themselves a migh ty
empire in India upon Persia s Eastern flank
The feeling h as lasted on both S ides to this day
Persia is outcast from th e legitimate family of Islam
and at the same time s h e h as developed th e most
vigorous national consciousness in the Moslem world
for the very reason that racial distinction is in this case
emp h asised by religious cleavage instead of bein g
overridden by th e sense of religious community
Th is magnificent national history h as not failed to
enshrine itself in tradition It is true th at th e Avestas
th e sacred scriptures of Zoroastrian ism h ave been lost
to th e Persian nation and become th e h eritage of an
Indian sect Th e memory of th e Ach aemenid kings
wh ose figures impressed th emselves so deeply upon t h e
mind of the Greeks h as likewise peris h ed among t h eir
o wn
successors Th eir Empire always remained a
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PERS IA
4 52
second han d imitation of th e Semitic world of Babylon
1
and stood in Iran for the hegemony of one province
and that not Z ara thustra s homelan d over th e rest
Yet in the eleventh century A D the great Arabic civilisa
tion that had been growing up at Bagdad awakened
anoth er Semitic echo on the Iranian p lateau w hich led
to the bi rth of a native culture
Th e new Persian literature then called into being has
become th e common inheritance of the whole Moslem
world It draws its inspiration not only from Phil o
sophy and Love but from the national memory of the
great Sassanian dynas ty whi ch fought with Rome before
Islam came an d it h as created from this source a noble
style of h istori cal epic and histori cal prose The ban
upon Persian heresy has never been e xtended to Persian
letters and they have remained the foun dation of
Moslem humanism
Persian na tionali ty th en is S trong in every element
and reviewin g the facts we can see that this national
vitality h as ultimately been due to the large size and
e ffective physical frontiers of the country which have
fitted it by natu re to be an independent fo cus of human
life Yet S ize and impenetrabili ty ar e only relative
factors and mod ern mec hani cal power has revolutio n ised
the scale of th e world Persia once a centre of wealth
civilisation and empire has sunk to be th e buffer s tate
between mightier units and will fin d its significance for
the future as th e economic high road for these units
towards th eir own in evitable goals
During the last fifty years Persia h as seen the robber
tribes on her Northern frontier replaced by the Russian
Empire a unified political organism stretching North
and North East all the way to the Polar Circle A s
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1
Fars o r
,
P ersis
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PERS IA
4 54
the plateau steppe sligh tly North of Kom Th ence it
will follow the river s course up into the Z agro s till it
re aches Hamadan Here it will be jo ined by a line from
T abriz working through Maragha and S akkys over the
e xtreme Southern watershed of the U ru m ia b asin West
of th e Demirli Dagh an d directly linking H amadan
with Europe through the Caucasus
Th e united line which will th us concentrate trafi c
for th e Indian Ocean from all quarters of the Russian
Empire will negotiate the Z agro s d efiles along th e
well known caravan route past th e mountain of
Elwen d past th e ba ttlefield of Nehavend where the
Sassanian made his last stand again st th e Moslem
in vader p ast th e rock of Behistun wh ereon Dari u s
”
in scrib ed th e triumphs of his strong government to
the town of K irmanshah Here a bran ch will take an
easy course Sout h West to Bagdad linking togeth er
th e Persian and Arabian systems wh ile the trunk lin e
will turn South and South East an d follow the river
Kercha through the foothills beneath Z agro s outer
b astions to Dizf ul in the plain of Kh uzistan Then it
will bif urcate again sending one arm Southward down
the Karu n river to the moderately good port of Mo h am
mera on th e Shatt al Arab almost opposite Basra
and another in the original South -Easterly direction
beneath Z agro s and along the Burning Coast
to
th e magnificent harbour of Bushire on the Persian
Gulf
This rail way would re lieve Russia of the last S hackle
upon her co m merce her door on the Pacific and the
new doors we have deman ded for her on the Norwegian
coast and through the Baltic an d Black Sea Straits
would be supplemented by an outlet upon the Southern
O cean
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PERS IA
455
Russia however is not th e only foreign empire th at
has vital interests in Iran
The region contains a great zone of mineral-o il
deposits extending North and South from Baku on the
Caspian as far as Khuzistan on the Persian Gulf which
taken as a whole is perhaps the richest petroleum field in
the world The Northern section of this zone at B aku
and in Azerbaijan has long been opened up under
Russian auspices but the Southern section like most
natural resources within the Persian frontier has never
yet been tapped When therefore th e recent adoption
of petrol as fuel for warships vastly increased the total
demand and made the question of its supply a pressing
concern to th e governments of naval powers this virgin
field in Persia acquired sudden significance Only
last year a company was formed to exploit it on a very
big scale and the British government bought a major
interest in its share capital
This company may play as important a part in Britis h
foreign policy during the immediate future as the East
India Company played in the eighteenth century and it
gives us a stake in Persia at le ast as great as Russia s
railway interests Great Britain h as already concluded
a railway agreement with Russia for a line that will link
India first with these oil fields and ultimately through
the Russian system with Europe
The road (of Indi an gauge ) will start from Karachi
the port of th e Indus basin and run along the M ekran
coast th rough Gwadar and Jask to Bunder Abbas th e
Persian port on the Hormuz Straits Hence it will turn
inlan d and mount through the tiers of the Fars moun
tain s which continue the line of Zagro s along t h e border
of th e Gulf When it attains the level of the plateau it
will take a line due North-West between th e mountain
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4 56
PERS IA
lakes and tangled peaks of Fars on the left and the Koh
rud range ( a parall el outwork of Z agro s towards the
Kev ir) on the right till it reaches Ispahan th e second
city of Persia From this point it will probably take its
way through th e mountains to Khunsar and thence
down a river d efile to Kom which will be its junction
with the Russian railway
These immense enterprises will not bring advantage
merely to the foreign powers which are pressin g for
permission to carry them out they offer the only hope
for the restoration of Persia s own economic prosperity
The terrible Mongol invasions whi ch ultimately gave
her th e means of recovering her national independence
cost h er th e material wealth which centuries of strong
Sassanian and Arab government had built up
In
the thirteenth century A D Khorassan her Northern
most provin ce was one of the most flourishing industrial
countries in th e world : the Mongols in a few cam
p aign s reduced it to a desolation from which it has never
recovered and the s hock of th e calami ty brought upon
the whole nation a chronic economic paralysis which it
will not throw off by its o wn eff orts
From a purely economic poin t of View then the oil
and railway concessions will be mutually advantageous
to both parties in th e contract to Great Britain an d
Russia on the one hand and to Persia herself on the
other ; but in dis cussin g th e future of Anatolia an d
A r abia we recognised the fact that when a backward
nation delivers into th e hands of an advanced nation
the monopoly over its exploitation the influx of th e
foreign state s capital almost inevitably leads on to
the establishment of its political sovereign ty over the
e xploited area The Mongol invasion brought one
boon only at the cost of another will the An glo
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458
PE RS IA
of com muni cation between the Gulf and the Plateau
The imm ens e straggling Southern provinces th at border
on the Gulf have been cut o ff by th is zone of unrest
from th e central govern ment s support an d under
ambitious viceroys have taken the path towards seces
sion
The national parliament at Teheran torn by
faction an d threatened with extin ction by reactionary
rebels h as been driven to place its cause in th e h ands
of hardly more estimable mi litary adventurers and
to buy the good will of B aktiyari chiefs and Southern
governors by never refusin g their demands
This is not an encouraging record an d it looks
blacker still in contrast with the British and Russian
achievements A century ago the Persian Gulf was
infested with Arab pirates the British Navy has swept
them out of every cr eek surveyed th e coast laid down
buoys at th e harbo ur entrances and in the ch annel of
th e S hatt al Arab an d opened th e whole of South ern
Persia to international trade Fifty years ago all
North ern Persia was overrun by the Turkomans of th e
steppe who made their livelihood by systematic raids
plunderin g burnin g and carryin g captive without
resistan ce : Russia has razed th e Turkoman strongholds
and b u ilt th e Tran scaspian rail way through their steppe
close along the Persian frontier thereby brin ging
North ern Persia into easy communication with Europe
and converting it in to the most orderly region in the
country The two foreign empires have already done
more for strong government in Persia without setting
foot with in its borders than th e Persian nation h as
accomplis h ed for itself
Recently we have taken a momentous step forward
The agreement concluded by Sir Edward Grey wi th the
R u ssian Government in 1 90 7 assigned to each power a
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PERS IA
459
political sphere of in fluence inside the Persian frontier
t h e interve n ing zone was left as common ground where
both powers were at liberty to pursue their interests
side by side
Th is policy leads straight to partition
”
That is after all a lesser evil its defenders will say
for th e Persian nation h as tried the experiment of
governin g itself and proved incapable it is therefore
its own interest to submit to being governed by its big
”
neighbours whose capability is proven
We must answer that it is useless to cure present evil
by laying up evil for the future Inasmuch as all the
potential factors of nationality are conspicuously present
in Persi a a very few years of strong government
wheth er it be introduced from within or from without
will suffice to kindle the spark and raise the flame
Economic prosperity will do for Persia what it has done
for Poland : it will bring the native population into
better proportion with the area of the country and con
front the two vulture empires with a nationalist move
ment of vast dimensions
”
But
t he defendant will reply
the ultimate
interests and desires of the Persian nation are not the
real issue By its present incompetence it has forfeited
any claim to future consideration Political dismember
ment may become very irksome to it but it will at
any rate not endanger th e peace of the world on the
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VI Th e S o u th Eastern b n dary o f th e Ru ssian
P ersian
S p h e S tarts fro m th e m tin g p o t f th e R s ia
d
Afgha fr tiers m akes a traight c s to Y ezd a t w S o th o f th
an d th en t rns N o th We t
S l t D esert o n th e in n r fl n k o f Fa
h e d in g directly f o r K asr i S hir n o n th Tu rco P e sian fro tier T h is
l eaves Isp ahan an d Khu zistan within th e n eu tral zo n e Th e No rth
Western b o u n d a y o f th e British S p here ta ts fro m G az k n ear th e
d K m n C ty to
P erso Afgh an fro n tier an d ru ns th o u gh B irj n d
B u d er Abb as o n th e H rm z strai ts
S ee M ap
1
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on
s
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a
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a
in
u s
o
our e
e
a
ou
o
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n
u
u
ts,
-
e
i
n,
r
r
n
e
-
s ,
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r
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n
s
e
r
,
o
u
r
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i
an
er
,
a
an
i
460
PERS IA
contrary a co mmon interest in keeping Persia quiet will
provide Russia and Great Britain with th e very bond
that th ey have lacked heretofore and if this happens at
Persia s expense Persia will only be one of your minori
ties th at must in evitably suffer
This really begs the question by ass u min g th at
a scheme of territo ri al partition can be devised that
will give equal satisfaction to the individual in terests
of Russia and Great Britain That is the necess ary
preliminary to their having an interest in common yet
the authors of the present agreement at any rate do n o t
seem to have been very sanguine as to its possibility
All the points where the interests of the two empires are
really vital have been left by th em within th e debatable
Zone Neither the routes along which the Russian
railways must pass to the head of the Gulf nor the oil
fields in which th e B ritish Ad m iralty h as S ince acquired
a predominant commercial interest have been appro
p riated by their respective claimants
It is easy to see the reason for this there is no means
of disentan gling th ese in terests on the b asis of territo rial
sovereignty If Russian sovereignty is to fo llow
Russian railways over th e plateau to th e sea Russia will
obtain a port of her own on the Indian Ocean which
s h e will be able to fortify if s h e likes as a base for a new
fleet and Great Britain could not possibly tolerate a
naval rival in In dian waters If on the other hand
British sovereignty fo llows British trade along all the
coasts of th e Gulf and up into th e oil fields of K huzistan
at its head Russia will fin ally be cu t off from her outlet
upon the Southern Sea by th e territory of a rival power
she will enjoy h er free railways to the coast and her free
port in which th ey are to termin ate merely on Great
Britain s sufferance an d such a position would be no
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46 2
P ERS IA
P ersia and will grow not less but more importan t pro
portionally as the whole co u ntry advances along th e
path of good government and prosperity
Such an authority can only be establis hed by th e
san ction of all E u rope Already we have found the
solution of many problems in th e intervention of a
European Concert but in no case has th e need for it
been so urgent as in this or the danger to which European
peace is e xposed by th e lack of it more irremediable
We cann ot much longer postpone the supreme problem of
our whole dis cussion h o w this Concert of Europe can
b e brough t in to permanent active exis tence
Me an
while no such Concert e xists to help us and till we have
called it into being we must palliate the situation in
Persia as best we can
(i ) Th e private understan din g be tween Great Britain
an d Russia must be superseded by a collective agreement
of all th e European powers definin g the frontiers of
Persia an d then guaranteeing her independence and
integrity within th ese lim its
(ii ) The system of administering publi c services by a
nn
e
drawn
from
lesser
European
nationa
ities
must
erso
l
l
p
be persevered with and if possible extended in ran ge
and the states of Europe must make th emselves responsible
collectively both for th e good behaviour of th ese o fficials
and for th eir just treatment
(iii ) The fin ancial support without which no attempt
at political reform can be carried forward must come in
future from all Europe and not as heretofore from the
Two Powers
An arrangement must be made by wh ich the European
governments shall give facilities to th e Persian govern
ment for borrowin g in their respective money markets
such capital as it may require for public purpo ses in th e
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46 3
PERS IA
same proportion as s hall have been agreed upon for com
If private investors
m ercial investments in Arabia
hesitate to take up any p ar ticular loan but the govern
ments approve the purpose for which it is being issued
the latter should either guarantee the loan to their
investing publics or else subscribe the capital in the
agreed proportion out of their own public funds on
moderate terms
It is only fair that if the nations
of Europe enjoy the advantage of being the world s
capitalists they s h ould accept the responsibilities of the
position as well the more so as their failure to intervene
may lead to a breakdown involving the world in war and
themselves in ruin
(iv ) The railway and oil enterprises will inevitably
pass un der Russia s and Great Britain s exclusive control
an d draw man y oth er subsidiary commercial concessions
in their wake But it would clearly be beneficial as tend
ing to counteract th e commercial predomin ance of these
two powers if all economic developments independent
of these were thrown open to international finance on
the same principles as we proposed in the case of Arabia
These suggestions do not claim to be more than S top
gaps They are designed to give the Persian nation the
best chan ce possible of keeping pace in its growth towards
maturity with the progress of Britis h and Russian power
in the country It is the vital interest not only of
Persia herself but of the two neighbour empires that s h e
should finally become strong enough to hold her own
against them both and so to maintain the balance im
partially between th em Yet the haven is still below th e
horizon and while the S hip of Persia is struggling pain
fully towards it her safe passage depends entirely on the
self control good wil l and good understanding of Russia
and Great Britain Such an understanding will best be
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464
PERS IA
brought about by a satisfactory settlement of the Persian
frontiers under the san ction of Europe
(i ) Great Britain at present commands th e Persian
Gu lf because till now S h e has been th e only efficient
power in th e neighbourhood but when the New Arabia
and Persia begin to come into line with th e nations of
Europe and when the Greater Russia East of the Ural
finds its economic outlet through Persian ports the
freedom of th e Gulf will become as urgent a necessity
for the states bordering on its co ast an d for inter
national commerce as the freedom of the Baltic and the
Black Sea Unless Great Britain modifies her policy
to meet the new situation she will become as intolerable
to her neighbours in the Gulf as Germany and the
Ottoman Empire have become to theirs in the Black
Sea and the Baltic
Our only j u stification for commandin g the Gulf is that
we po lice it As soon as Arabia and Persia are capable
of undertakin g th e task we must retire in th eir favour
only stip u latin g that they S h all main tain a flotill a neith er
less nor more than sufficient to patrol the coasts and shall
not build or allow to be buil t an y base for a battle fleet
upon their shores
Th e evacuation of the Gulf would involve the cession
of Bah r ein Island to Arabia and the abandonment of our
protectorate over th e S u ltanate of Oman Oman is a
straggling territory with a long coast line iso lated from
the rest of th e Arabian peninsula by the great Roba al
Hali desert in its hinterland It controls the entrance
to the Gulf at the Straits of Hormuz and the liberation
of th e Gulf would not be a reality unless this state were
neutralised and guaranteed by all the powers
(ii ) In fixing th e frontiers of Persia herself we should
r elieve her of all territory alien in population and in cor
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4 66
PERS IA
a state which occupies a considerably less
im porta nt economic an d strategi cal position than Persia
an d whi ch la cks all intern al cohesion
Af g hanistan is a typ ieal example of th ose mushroom
Oriental empir es that spread their s hadow in a day and
vanish in th e nig ht Its nucleus is the upper Kabul
valley whi ch o f fers the best route across the Hin du Kus h
range from th e Oxus plain of Central Asia to the Indus
plain of the Pu njab The dynas ty entrenched in Kabul
City comman ds the South Eastern issue of th e pass and
taking advan tag e of their geographi es position th e amirs
of Kabul have e xtended their suzerain ty over a territory
on both sides of th e great mountain barrier sligh tly
larger in its total area th an th e Austro - Hun garian
Monarch y
The mou ntains cover the major part of th e country and
the population of four an d a half m illions spread th inl y
over it beggars the Dual Monarchy itself in its motley
diversi ty : Pach tu -speaking Afgh ans in th e South East
scattered through the vast tangle of valleys that feeds t h e
West bank of the In dus and the North bank of the
Helm u n d Persians in the West in the Seistan basin and
at Herat Mongol descended Hazar as in th e fastnesses
of Hindu Kush itself Turkis h-spe akin g Uzbegs in the
plain between the mountain bar rier and the Southern
bank of O xus and Iranian Tajiks on the Pamir plateau
whose snows feed the head waters of Oxus an d the
Northern tributaries of the Kabul Th is last population
is so isolated from the world by the great mountain
bastions on whi ch i t struggles to live that i t has not even
been touch ed by the advance of Islam and remains a
pri mitive island of Indo -Europe an paganism in the
midst of th e Moslem Ocean like th e pagan Lithuanians
who resisted Christendom till the fourteent h century A D
integrity of
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46 7
PERS IA
This precarious empire founded in th e latter half of
the eighteenth century in a reaction against Persian
aggression would have fallen to pieces again in the
”
eighteen forties h ad not th e British government in
In dia interfered A generation of half measures followed
which cost several disasters and brough t no tangible
results while all th e while the Russ ian Empire s advance
towards Afghanistan s North Western frontier con
tin n ed without intermission up the Oxus and Jax
artes
The relation between Afghanistan and the
Indi an Empire was finally settled by Lord Robert s
masterly campaigns in 1 879 and 1 880 Th e Afghan
government submitted its foreign policy to British
control and was granted in return a subsidy (which
has never been claimed ) and a territorial guarantee
Accordingly when the annexation of Merv in 1 884
brought Russia into direct touch with th e Afghan
marches she found not merely the Amir but the
British government barring her further advance and
after an interval of extreme tension between the two
principals a definitive frontier between Afghanistan
and the Russian Empire was laid down by an Anglo
Russian boundary commission in 1 885
The conventions with Afgh an istan in 1 880 and with
Russia in 1 885 are still looked upon in this country as th e
main bulwark of India s defence but it is most im
probable that this bulwark will contin ue to be effective
We may keep the Kabul government under our thumb
and even prevent foreign powers from tamperin g with
its subjects but we cannot save the government from
destruction at the hands of those subjects th emselves
Strong governments come into existence in order to
give co h esion to populations which cannot effect it for
themselves and they only remain S trong so long as they
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4 68
PERS IA
promote th e interests o f th e populations they g overn by
carryin g this cohesion still further During th e last
thi rty fo u r years the governm ent of Kabul has main
tain ed itself by British support in th e in terests of th e
Indian Empire : its slow petrifaction whi ch from th e
point of view of British diploma cy h as been such a satis
factory sign of th e growing stabili ty of the situation has
become in its subjects eyes a patent in dication of its
bankruptcy A few months ago ominous ru mours foun d
th eir way in to the papers that th e Am ir s writ had ceased
to run among the chief Pa ch tu tribes of the South the
only popu lations in th e whole territo ry that are bound to
th e governm ent by racial kinship A famil y qu arrel in
the dyn asty or the emergence of a mad mu llah (th e
Afghans are fanatica l Moslems) may burst the diplomatic
bubble in a moment and explo d e th e carefully tended
buf fer state between th e Indian and Russian Empires in
a blaze of anarch y
Sooner or later th e e xplosion is bound to come and
if it is to disch ar ge itself harm l essly into th e air Gr eat
Britain and Russia mu st arrive at a fran k understanding
beforehan d as to how th ey will dispose of th e ruins It
is possible that the eventual dismantling of Afgh anistan
is already the subject of a secret tr eaty be tween th e two
powers ; but if it is not it is an essential measure of pre
caution tha t they s hall provide for it by a public trea ty as
soon as possible in some su ch term s as th ese
(i ) Sin ce Afghanistan is merely a geograp hical area
corresponding to no national reality it is expedient that
so soon as th e present government b ecomes incapable of
disch arging its functions th e territory should be parti
tio n ed between neig hbourin g sta tes capable of govern
ing it efli cien tly
(ii ) That th e partition sho u ld follow natural physical
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PERS IA
470
m
Pa ir plateau between the very h ead waters of
onto
the latter systems till it reach ed the present frontier of
Chinese Turkestan
This division would unite the Turkis h speaking ele
1
ments to th eir brethren in Russian Central Asia and
assign th e Pach tu populations to India which already
includes th eir kin smen in th e North West frontier
province Th e Iranians of the Pamirs would be split
between th e two states but they would hardly be aware
of th eir misfortune for racial b onds become meanin gless
in face of such mountain barriers and the stru ggle for life
again st the physical environment ousts all oth er interests
We cannot propose th e naval evacuation of the Gulf
and the dismemberment of Afghanistan without en
countering a last desperate assa u lt from the Russop hobe
We have repeatedly chal lenged his general policy
but here we are trampling under foot the perfected
details of his strategical dispositions It is a funda
mental principle o f his faith that th e Indian Empire
must be sundered from foreign powers by a zone of
neutral territories on l and an d of Britis h waters on sea
having established such a zone he is indiff erent to what
goes on beyond its limits T his passive mech anical
attitude is really untenable in face of th e momentous
changes that are happening both in India h erself and in
the countries beyond the neutral pale
B ritis h statesmanship in the nineteenth century
”
regarded India as a Sleeping Beauty whom Britain
had a prescriptive righ t to woo wh en sh e awoke so it
hedged with thorns the garden where she lay to safeguard
h er from marauders prowling in the desert without
Now th e princess is awake and is claiming th e ri ght to
Th ey h av e b een sev ered fro m th em m erely by th e accid en t of
Afgh an co n q est in th e eighteen th cen tu ry
th e
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PERS IA
47 1
dispose of her own hand while the marauders h ave trans
formed themselves in to respectable gentlemen di ligently
occupied in turnin g their desert into a garden too but
grievously impeded by the Britis h thorn hedge When
they politely request us to remove it we shall do well to
consent for they will not make th e demand till they feel
th emselves strong enough to enforce it an d in the tussle
th at will follow if we refuse th e sympathies of the Indian
princess will not be on our S ide Now th at she is awake
she wishes to walk abroad among her neighbours
she feels herself capable of reb u ffin g without our coun
ten an ce any blandishments or threats they may o f fer her
and she is becoming as weary as they of th e thorn hedge
th at confines her to h er garden
If we treat her with tact India will never wish to
secede from the spiritual broth erhood of the British
Empire but it is inevitable th at she S hould lead a more
and more independent lif e of her own and follow th e
example of the Anglo Saxon commonwealths by estab
If th ese
lish in g direct relations with her neighbours
relations are to be good India must neither encroach
provocatively beyond her proper bounds nor retire
timidly behind them Her interest in the Persi an Gulf
will continue to be important but cease to be paramou nt
and she must be careful to yield her neighbours in that
quarter th eir j u st place in the S u n
in A f ghanistan
on th e other hand S h e must advance beyond her zariba
and boldly put herself into touch with the Russian Empire
on th e other side of it
Th e real fun ction of Kabul is not to divide India from
Central Asia but to link her to it For Bengal and the
Pun jab as for Khorassan the natural route to Europe is
the Tran scaspian railway The Indian trunk road system
cannot halt forever at the Kh yber Pass some day it must
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PERS IA
472
pus h up the valley to Kabul an d over the great passes
commanded by Kabul to Kunduz and B al kh on the
O xus plain and where th e high road leads the railway
will ultimatel y follow The Hindu Kus h wil l one day
be pierced by a tunnel more stupendous th an those
whi ch already penetrate the A lps and are penetrating the
Taurus and express trains will run straight through
from Cal cu tta to Kr asnovodsk
Th e Russop hobe will shake his head over th e omen
By th ese passes he will recollect the great conquerors
of India h ave march ed in from Alexander the Great to
Babar the Lion Yet such precedents are no longer
valid Then India was in th e position of the civilised
man unarmed while h er invaders from the North West
possessed arms and nothin g else so that th e spo ils of
war were their only livelihood now the civilised rule of
Russia in Central Asia is fast obliteratin g th e contrast
between life on opposite sides of the Hin du Kush and a
new Russia is growing up there which places its treasure
no less than India does in the works of peace
What
we said of Germany at th e outset is no less true of th e
Russian Empire the destiny before h er is to be come a
”
community of workers and she has already put be hind
”
h er th e phase of bein g a mere nation in arms
Russia
and India will make each other s acquain tance across th e
passes of Hin du Kush and acquainta nce will ripen into
friendship as each grows to maturity They will mee t
on an equality and develop on parallel lines
If however we must contend with th e Russop hobe
on his chosen ground we can show that from th e
strategical point of view it makes little diff erence wh eth er
th e political frontiers of Russia and India march with
one anoth er along the summit of th e Hin du Kus h or
wh eth er th ey are artificially separated by a buff er terri
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PERS IA
474
basin Here its progress would be impeded by the long
and dif ficult barrier of the Hamun and this would be the
point where it would encounter the Indian army of
defence
This front h as long monopolised the attention of th e
Indian General Staff and in order to make th e critical
area accessible to th e Indian army th ey have buil t a
narrow gauge railway th e costliness of which may be
estimated by the d ifficulties its engineers had to over
come It S tarts from th e Indus plain in th e North of
S ind climbs N N W th rough th e Bolan pas s to Quetta
an d th en negotiates th e Ch o d j ak pass beyond
which
brings it into th e basin of th e Helm u n d River th e great
feeder of th e Seis tan swamp from th e East This rail
way is th e key to th e defence of India because from its
termin us Indian troops can be poured into Seistan from
th e East quicker than Russian troops starting from th e
Tran scaspian railway can reach it from th e North W est
Seistan is and will remain th e m ilitary door between
Russia and In dia though little commercial traffic is
ever likely to pass through it an d conversely th e passes
of Kabul though they will probably become the most
direct economic thoroughf are between In dia and Europe
will never lend themselves to th e passage of armies
Our proposed partition of Afghanistan th erefore
does not a ff ect the strategic defence of India in th e
slightest degree except that it brings the whole of
Seistan up to the Hamun under the direct control of th e
In d ian government and so gives it the power of e xtend
ing the Quetta railway to th e East bank of the Haru d
River if it likes and of masking the present line of
defence by an e xterior lin e thrown more th an three
hundred miles forward From the limited point of view
of strategy as well as from the more general point of view
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PERS IA
475
of economic expansion Persia not Af ghanistan is the
mine beneath the feet of Russia and Great Britain which
threatens if either makes one false step to explode
between th em and perhaps to shatter them both
It would be foolish to blind ourselves to this danger
true wisdom bids us face it an d seek its cause Wh en
we look steadfastly we see t h at this fe arful cloud upon
the future no less th an the war that is at this moment
crucifying Europe is due to the lack of an i nternational
power stronger handed and wider minded than the
individual nation al states
If a Concert of Europe could arise skilled enough to
b u ild up national self government in Persia Russia and
Great Britain would never come into conflict over their
interests th ere and even if the Concert could not muster
the initiative for this but were merely strong enough in
authority to maintain its external guarantee of Persia s
neutrality against all comers Russia and Great Britain
th ough th ey might quarrel over in terests inextricably
ta ngled by Persia s anarchy could not push their quarrel
to war Their only practicable battle ground lies
ath wart Persian soil and by the European guarantee
this arena would be closed against them
Th e present war would probably never have been
fough t if the violation of Belgian neutrality had auto
m atically mobilised against Germany the active inter
v en tio n of every oth er European state
If we learn no
lesson from the present catastrophe an d allow the
national S tate hereafter the same unbridled licence th at it
has enjoyed before th en this war will not be the last and
most terrible in th e world but th e prelude to a cycle of
increasing horror til l th e nations of Europe are ground
to powder and the national idea perishes simultaneously
with European civilisation itself
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NAT IONAL ITY AND SO VE RE IG N TY
476
CHAP TER X I I
NATI ONALITY
V
A N D S O EREI GN TY
WE have completed our survey of national problems in
the area aff ected by the war
W e entered upon it with an ideal before our m inds
the sovereign national state of the West How far
have we found this ideal app licable to the rest of Europe
and to the Nearer East
As we proceeded E astwards the national atom proved
less and less capable of adoption as the politi cal un it
In Central Europe we discovered th e Tch ech s will
be unable to work out their national s alvation as an
independent state the economic factor necessitates
1
the ir po liti cal in corporation in the German Empire
In the B alkans the political disentanglement of one
nationality from another is only possible if all alike
2
consent to econo mi c federation in a gener al zollverein
In the North East geographical conditions de cree th at
national individuality shall express itse lf by devolution
wit hin t h e bond of the Russian Empire ?
In all th ese cases the political unit reve als itself not as
a single nation but as a group of nationalities yet even
these groups cannot be entir ely sovereign or self
contained Like the Chemist s molecules th ey are
woven out of relations be tween ato ms and are bound
in their turn to enter into relation with o ne anot h er
Th e nationalities O f the South East coalesce in a
Balkan Zollverein ; th e Zollverein as a whole is involved
Ch IV S ectio C
Ch VI II
Ch VI
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NA T IO NALI TY A N D SOVERE IGNTY
8
47
brou ght it into being at all—and successively they
have been cast upon the s crap heap
One genera
tion passed and the
Concert was shattered by
the convulsion of 1 848 ; a second and Europe was
1
divided into two camps by the T riple Alliance
now the t hird has passed and
Guaranteed Neu
”
th e most solid of all the international lin ks our
trality
great grandfathers forged h as snapped at the first
shock O f battle between the marshalled hosts
Guarantee
T he formula coined in 1 8 1 4 rings
ironi cal to -day Belgium was guaranteed in order to
secure th e stability of Europe yet on account of that
guarantee Great Britain and Germany two of the
greatest sovereign units in the Europe an complexu s
are at t his moment engaged in a life and death struggle
Germany violated the Belgian guarantee de liberately in
her attempt to destroy the European system by war
Th e e ff ect O f the guarantee may still prove momentous
it has drawn us into the war an d our intervention may
turn the scale Yet even if the A ll ies are victorious and
the new Europe is fashioned by them after their own
hearts and not by Germany after hers t his will not save
the credit of the guarantee itself Germany may be
punished for her work but the work cannot be undone
Europe must drink the cup of war to the dre g s—the
pain the hate the waste the pure evil that is not
diminis h ed one drop by cause or consequence Th e
guarantee was invented to avert that catastrophe from
Europe The catastrophe has happened and th e
invention is bankrupt
T he old Europe is dead the old vision vanished and
we are wrestling in agony for new in spiration That
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Ita ly j o in d Ge m an y an d A
d each o th e
af t r th ey h d j o
1
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a
r
in e
r.
u str ia-
Hun gary in 1 882 three years
,
NATIONALITY A N D SOVEREIG N TY
479
h as been the motive of this book
And yet the
reader will say
you return to th e discredited fetish
once more ? With the crash of the Belgian guarantee
about our ears you propose to regulate by guarantee
the future relation of Norway and the Russian Empire
and replace the snapped link by a hundred oth ers more
brittle than itself
The objection is just and we
must meet it
We must be ware of putting our new wine into old
bottles While guarantees hold th ey conserve t h eir
ch arge : when they break t h e destruction is worse
than if th ey had never existed Unless we can ensure
that the sovereign states of Europe respect European
guarantees h ereafter in other fashion than Germany at
t h e present crisis we must modify the formula or else
discard it altogether
Can the mechanism of the European system be
safeguarded against its individual members ? Several
means have been mooted to this end
Disarmament
We discussed
(i ) O ne means is
it in connection with the Russo German frontier in
1
Poland and with the mi litary control of the Kiel
2
Canal but in both cases we found it Utopian A
war may be just or unjust defensive or aggressive yet
when once a nation is at war its e xistence is at stake
Germany is fighting for her life no less than the powers
she has attacked Armament is self preservation and
self preservation is the last sovereign right that a
sovereign state will surrender
(ii ) Dis armament by Compulsion thus p resu p
poses t h e complete suppression o f individual sovereignty
and no one seriously proposes it as a means of break
ing in
the untamed sovereign state
Voluntary
Ch II S ectio n D
Ch IX S ectio n A
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480
NATIONAL ITY AND SOVEREIGN TY
D isarmament
is the catch word yet th e di fficulty
involved is just the same Nations may promise
to disarm but war is a question of life and death at
the whisper of war they will break their word and who
is to call th em to account
Limitation of Armaments would prove even
(iii )
more ine ffectual It would save men s pockets in
peace time but it would not save Peace itself T he
essence of th e idea is to make the reduction proportional :
ex hyp o th esi there would still be the same balance of
forces and therefore the same calculations on the p art
of sovereign governments upon whi ch the possibility
of war depends
A rmament is self preservation and living creatures
wh eth er individual men or individual states will s afe
guard their existence with all their soul an d all t h eir
strength T here is no other limit th an their capaci ty
and limitation of armaments in peace time would mean
at most that each nation would arm to the uttermost
after war had broken out as Great Britain is doing
now instead of arming to the uttermost before its out
break as Germany and most oth er European powers
have done hitherto
In practice it would not even mean t h at A rtificial
limitation would set a premium upon dishonesty One
extra submarine concealed in a canal one extra howitzer
in a cellar and the stipulated balance would be upset
the calculations invalidated and th e o ffending state
ensured against defeat
After all
t h e off enders
would say to themselves
wh at is to determine our
righ tful proportion except our own willingness to spend
our strength
Our neighbours wrote t h e m selves O ff
if we can make t h e e ffort to
at nine guns we at ten
build an eleventh th at alters th e real proportion between
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NA T IONAL ITY AND SOVERE IGN TY
4 82
sovereignty superior to its own If we are to maintain
the mechanism of European society by compulsion we
must swear in as special constables the individual
members themselves
This policy may answer under very favourable
circumstances Denmark may take charge of the B altic
1
Straits and faithft
execute h er comm ission yet as
soon as we pass to th e B lack Sea Straits the meth od
1
breaks down We foresaw that here our chosen candi
dates would fail us and that we should have to consign
the task to Russia To instal Russia at the Bosphorus
and Dar danelles or to leave Great Britain in control of
the Persian Gulf or Suez Canal is muc h like posting a
brigand to guard his professional haunts
Set a thief
”
to catch a thi ef : apply it to guarantees and we are
driven back upon the O ld system neither more nor less
the system th at one of the wolves in sheep s clothin g has
just dis credited by violatin g the guaranteed in d ep en
dence of Belgium
We have asked our question and must accept the
answer It is useless to fortify our new European
org anism by guarantees of the old order because we
cannot fortify such guarantees themselves again st the
sovereign national state Wh enever it chooses the
sovereign u n it can shatter the international mechanism
by war W e are powerless to prevent it : all we can
do is to abandon our direct attack and look for th e
causes which impel states to a choice as terrible for
themselves as for their victims
”
You ask the Germans say
why we broke our
contract towards Belgium
It would be more pertinent
to ask h ow we were ever committed to such a contract
at all
Ch IX S ectio n A
Ch IX S ectio n B
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4 83
NATIONAL I TY AND SOVEREIGNTY
Th e h ear t of modern Germany is t h e industrial
world of th e Rhineland and Westp h alia The Bel gian
frontier and t h e Belgian tariff wall rob th is region of its
natural outlet at Antwerp yet the contract expressly
forbids us to right this econo m ic and g eograp hical
wrong by uniting the sea port to its hinterland
The c hief need of modern Germany is a source of
raw produce and a market for h er finished products in
th e tropical zone Belgium has staked out for herself
th e one important region in Africa which was not
already occupied by France or Great Britain She can
do nothi ng with it while we
but this contract
expressly forbids us to kick t h e Belgian dog out of
the manger
“Because of this Belgi an guarantee we must go in
want of almost everything we need yet meanwhile our
great neighbours on eit h er flank have conspired to
take from us even the little we possess already The
struggle with France and Russi a on which we are now
engaged has been impending for years and on our part
it is a struggle for existence but even here th e same
remorseless contract operates to paralyse our e ff orts
On the scale of modern warfare the Western battle
front must extend from Switzerl and to t h e Nort h Sea
yet th e greater part of this immense Zone is neutralised
by natural and artificial obstacles on either side From
Switzerland to t h e Ardennes th ere will be stalemate :
the decision will be reached in the open country between
the Ardennes and the coast Here as soon as war
broke out France and our own fatherland had to con
centrate the terrific energy of their armaments yet we
had contracted away our initiative in this vital area for
it lies with in the frontiers of th efiB elgian state Th e
g overnment we h ad gu aran teed mi gh t prepare the ground
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484
NATIONAL I TY AND SOVE RE IGN TY
for France and ruin it for ourselves yet be ca u se of the
guarantee we must look on passively at th e digging of
our grave
“Why then h ad we suff ered ourselves to be bound
h and and foot
We had not : our gran dfath ers had
entailed t h e bonds upon us Wh en th ey signed the
contract in 1 83 9 th ey knew not wh at they did At
t h at time Germany h ad no industry Belgium h ad no
colonies and th e F ranco German frontier between the
Arden nes and the Jura was not closed to field operations
by two continuous lines of O pposing fortifications
Had their S ignature been dem anded in 1 91 4 th ey would
h ave refused it as indignantly as we should have refused
it ourselves To us no choice was o f fered and if we
h ave asserted for ourselves th e right to ch oose who
dares in his heart to condemn us
Who will impose a
ch an geless law upon a changing world
T his is Germany s argument about B elgium Her
facts may be true or false th e arguments she builds
1
on th em valid or fallacious
T hat is not the poin t
B ehind arguments and facts th ere looms an idea that
can i n spire an individual nation to make war on Europe
We must do justice to th is idea if it is not to play t h e
same h avoc ag ain
Humanity has an instinctive craving for something
eternal absolute petrified T his seems to be a funda
mental factor in our psychology it has obtruded itself
equally in spheres as diverse as religion an d po liti cs
but it h as been especially dominant in diplomacy
Fo r instan ce th e ar gu m en t do es n o t j ustify in th e l east th e p ro
If th e situa
ceed ure b y w hich Germ an y actu al ly asserted h er freed o m
tio n h ad al tered so vastl y that sh e felt h erself n o lo n g er bo un d by th e
guaran tee sh e o u ght to have d en o u n ced it fo rm ally in tim e o f p eace
B y pro fessing o bservan ce o f it u p to th e last m o m en t an d o n ly brea kin g
it b y th e d eclaratio n o f war sh e o b ta n ed a grav e m i litary advan tage
That was d o wnrigh t d isho n esty
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NA T I O NAL I T Y A N D SOVERE IGN TY
486
our ener gy of thought and will to th e racial an d economic
proble ms of Europe we have to solve each one of th em
an d solve it to a n icety yet w h en the work seems done
and its result stands embodi ed in map and treaty we
must confess that we are unprofitable serv ants an d
reco g nise that we are only at the beginn ing of our task
Our real work wi ll be to regulate this immediate
settlement so that it varies in harmony with the su b se
quent growth of Europe and modifies its stru cture and
mech anism to meet the organism s chan ging needs
We have now discovered the flaw in guarantees of t h e
old order They were framed for rigidity and there
fore were doomed to crack Our new guarantees must
be el astic they must be forged of steel not cast in iron
How can we frame guarantees O f this malleable
ch aracter ? We may shed light on th e problem by
analysing into clas ses the actual guaran tees we have
proposed in our survey
(i ) Firstly we have proposed gu arantees of political
independence and integrity in the case of th e three
1
1
Scandinavian states the Slovene Unit the Greek
4
3
islands off Anatolia Persia and th e Sultanate of
4
Oman
The autonomy guaranteed to Poland wit hin
5
the Russi an Empire comes under th e same head
(ii ) Secondly we have proposed to guar antee
economic righ ts o f way to one state across the po litical
territory of another Instances of t his type are the
1
Russian railway through Norway to the Atlanti c
7
and through Persia to the Indi an Ocean ; Poland s
title to free trade down the Vistula and to the enjoyment
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Ch V
Ch IX
A
Ch X S ecti o D S trictl y speakin g we pro po sed to gu aran tee th e
Kin g do m o f G reece to th e exten t o f this po rtion o f its territo ry
Ch VIII S ection A
Ch X I
Ch X I
Ch Di S ection A
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S ectio n
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NA T IONAL ITY A N D SOVEREIG N TY
487
’
of a free port at Danzig
and Germany s S i m ilar cl aim
1
to an unh ampered outlet at Trieste
Both th ese classes of guarantee are adapted from the
international machinery invented during the Nineteenth
Ce n tury Th e first class is an extensio n of the political
guarantee given to Belgium in 1 839 th e second of the
economic right O f way secured to h er th rough Dutch
waters in order to furnis h the commerce of Antwerp
with a free passage down th e estuary of t h e Sch eldt
to th e open sea
O ur standpoint towards t h ese two classes is inevitably
prejudiced by th eir associations
We envisage them
”
as embodied
once for all
like th eir nineteenth
century precedents in a contract and like nineteenth
century diplomacy we te n d to regard such contracts
”
as so many girders in a permanent settlement
(iii ) Th ere is a third class however which h as no
precedent in t h e past and which will react upon our
standpoint in the very opposite direction our proposed
guarantee of alien minorities within the n ational state
We have resorted to this formula more often t h an to
either of the others Th e German populations trans
ferred with Schleswig to Denmark and with t h e
4
Eastern frontier Zone to Autonomous Poland ; t h e
Poles abandoned to Germany in West Prussia
the
Germans and Slovaks wh o cannot be disentangled from
5
‘
1
Hungary ; the Christian elements in Anatolia an d
7—
these are a few out of many instances and
Arabia
”
each one of them is a refutation of finality
Th e fact th at such minorities must inevitably be left
on our hands compels us to recognise that beyond a
C h II S ectio n D
Ch V
C h II S ectio n C
Ch II S ectio n D
“Ch IV S ectio n A
C h X S ection D
Ch X S ectio n E
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488
NA T IONALITY AND SOVERE IGNTY
certain degree the economi c and the national factor are
not co m mensurable Here is an essential imperfection
in th e best settlement we can possibly devise
The fact that th ese min o rities require a guarantee
reveals a deficiency still more grave than the other inas
much as it is not environmental but psychological It
means that hardly a sin gle national society in Europe
h as yet become capable of national toleration Just
as people were persecuted for their religious beliefs in
th e sixteenth century and for th eir poli ti cal O pinions in
th e nin eteenth so they are stil l in the twentiet h century
almost universally e xposed to persecution for th eir
national indi v iduality In this sphere the so cial ev o lu
tion of Europe is exceptionally backward an d the
problem of nationali ty wi ll never be solved till thi s
psych ologi cal incongruity is removed
This at once reduces to their proper proportion both
th e i m mediate geographi cal settlement O f the problem
which we have elaborated in this book and that guarantee
of alien minori ties wh ich we have found to be its
necessary supplement In thi s li ght the contracts in
which such guarantees are enshrined appear as the
transitory s caffold ing they are Weakened by the
morbid hypert rophy of nationalism whi ch has been
preying upon h er for years exhausted by th e con
vu lsio n O f war in whic h the malady has cul m i nated
Europe must walk on crutches now or else collapse ;
yet she will not be a cripple for ever Relieved by
these guarantees from the immediate str ain of u n m iti
gated national friction s h e will be able to concentrate
all h er ener gy upon her spiritual convalescence As
soon as S h e has tr ained herself to national toleration
S h e will dis card the guarantees and walk unaided
So f ar from constituting a permanent settlement
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NA T IO NALI TY A N D SOVEREIGNTY
490
of the In ternational Conference it can only be met by
the appointment of a standing international committee
with executive powers empowered that is to administer
an d interpret t h e contra cts to which the members
1
of the Conference have originally subs cribed
Our
third type of guarantee has thus presented us with the
clue we sought The letter of international law h as
proved in effective hitherto because it h as lacked the
inspiration of a living spirit and this spirit can only be
breathed into it by a human organ of international
authority
Supposing that such an organ were called into
existence wh at kind of international relations would
naturally fall with in its s cope
We can analyse its
probable sphere of activity into several departments
(i ) Th e first branch would of course be th ose
gu ar antees of national minorities which have j ust
taught us th e necessity for its existence
(ii ) The second branch would include the two
subjects of gu arantee we dealt with first namely
Political Independence
and
Righ ts of Way
We can see now that their administration by a repre
sen tativ e international executive would eliminate t h at
defe ct of rigidity which has always proved fatal to th em
h eretofore
Between them these two branches would cover all
th e machinery we have suggested for our re g enerated
European organism Are there any further sp h eres of
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wo u ld b e prematu re to discu ss th e co nstitu tio nal relatio n between
this rep resen ta tiv e in tern atio n al o rgan an d th e in divid u al nation al
We
states fro m whi ch its d el egated au th o rity wo u ld b e d erived
can n o t yet co j ectu re h o w m u ch discretio n its so v ereign co nstitu en ts
wo u ld b e wil lin g to gran t it Its referen ce wo u ld pro bably in clu de a
free han d to in terpret in th e widest sense b u t o n th e qu estio n o f
em en din g th e actu al l etter o f th e co n tract o ur execu tive o rgan wo u ld
a lm o st certain l y b e requ ir ed to refer b ack to its p rin C p als
1
It
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NATIONAL ITY AND SOVEREIGNTY
49 1
national intera ction over which our international organ
might properly assume control ? It would be logical
to assign to it if possible all relations between sove
reign national states which are peculiarly subject to
ch ange
Change is a harmonisation of two rhythms— Growth
and Decay Some sovereign units are continu all y
waxing in population material wealth and spiritual
energy : such are Great Britain and Germany, Fran ce
and the Russian Empire Others like the Ottoman
Empire or Sp ain are as continually waning in respect
of the same factors
This ebb and flow in the current of life causes and
must cause a perpetual readjustment of the relations
between units in the two complementary phases Units
in the positive ph ase inevitably absorb the fibres and
trespass upon the environment of those which have
passed over into the negative rhythm We cannot arrest
t his process any more than we can abolis h change
itself : what we can do is to regulate it on the lines O f
civilisation instead of letting it run riot in a blind
stru g gle for e xistence
The current r adiates in an almost infinite variety of
interactions Great Britain Germany and India are
discharging surplus population into the empty lands
of the New World ; Great Britain and France are
applying surplus wealth to evoke the latent resources of
countries with no surplus of their own Great Britain
an d Russia are putting fort h spiritual energy to inspire
pri m itive peoples with the vitality of civilisation
Our international organ can handle no more than a
fraction of this world wide interchange
(i ) We may exclude at once from its competence
every interaction that is confined within the limits
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NATIONALITY AND S O VEREIGNTY
492
of a single sovereign unit
With in the British
Empire for example it is patently impracticable to
internationalise the problems of Indian emigration
to Vancouver or the Transvaal of the closure of the
Australian labour market again st labour from th e
British Isles of commercial exploitation in Nigeria or
Rhodesia of autonomy in Irel and or the Asiatic De
pendencies The Empire may handle its o wn problems
well or ill but it will never consent to waive its sove
reign ty in respect of them
W e should regard the
proposition of international intervention as a menace
to the Emp ire s e xistence We should undoubte dly
fight rather than submit to it and every other sovereign
state would do the same under si m ilar circumstances
In purely internal af fairs international authority will
never obtain a footin g at the expense of the individua l
unit
(ii ) We may h kewise exclude interactions between
two or more sovereign states in spheres that fall entirely
with in their respective sovereignty The Dominion
of Canada or the U S A would never submit to
international regulation the question of Japan ese
immigration along their Pacific seaboard If Russia
wished to float a loan she would never allow our inter
national or g an to decide where and in what proportions
it should be placed : she would in sist on keepin g h er
hands free and making the best bargain for herself
both from the fin ancial and the political poin t of view
Italy and the Argentine would never relinquis h their
respe ctive sovereign righ ts over the Italian labourers
wh o cross the Atlantic every year to reap the So ut h
American h arvests International authority would be
flouted as uncompromisingly in these instan ces as in
the former
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NATIONALITY A N D SOVERE IGNTY
494
take in h and W e s h all frankly repeat our co n fession
that active politi cal construction of this kind will be
beyond th e capacity of any international or g an which
the immediate settlement may bring to birth after the
present war Europe wi ll not be reborn in th e fuln ess
of her strength like Athena she will stren gthen herself
in pain and sorrow advan cing laborio u sly from small
thin gs to great The assertion of international sove
reign ty in Persia and at Consta ntinople will not be the
first step in international organisation : it is th e goal
O f our hopes the extreme horizon that our vision can
wr est from Utopia
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We h ave now establis h ed th e nature of th at inter
national force which is to regu late the relation between
sovereign national molecules and we can abstract our
conclusion in two formulas
(i ) There is no virtue in lifeless contracts unless
they are administered by a living organ with executive
or in other words wi th sovereign authority
(ii ) On th e other hand this international sovereign ty
must scrupulously confine itself to th e adjustment of
the equilibrium be tween individual units and to the
apportionment among them of untenanted areas
It cannot encroach upon individual sovereignty in
any way that e ff ects or is deemed to affe ct the sove
reign right O f self preservation in parti cular it cannot
aspire to th e regulation of War an d it is waste of in
to
propound
any
international
mac
h
inery
for
u
i
t
en
g
y
this purpose The best-conceived arbitration or con
ciliation is bound to break down when once a sovereign
state has made up its mind that the surrender of its will
on a parti cular issue is equivalent to annihilation No
international authori ty could ever prevent parleys like
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NAT I O NALITY A N D S O VERE IGN TY
495
those of last July from resolving themselves into a
1
conflict of arms
The reader may feel this distinction of sp h eres
”
casuistical
I ad m it he may say
th at each com
b atan t has staked his existence on the result of the
stru g gle but surely h e h as staked it for a cause
Th e
issues of th e war are certain concrete proble m s
Morocco th e Balkans the Ottoman Empire— all of
which conspicuously fall within the sp h ere you propose
to internationalise Have you not been making a
distinction without a diff erence ? If you cannot re
gu late war itself h ow can you regulate the relations
that precipitate it
In July 1 9 1 4 your international
organ would have proved just as ine f fective in the
”
sphere you reserve to it as in any oth er
Yes we must an swer if it h ad only been called into
e xistence th at very month no if it h ad already been
in com m ission during th e Moroccan crises of 1 90 5 and
1 91 1
or h ad been th ere to take in hand th e Balkan
problem in 1 875 the moment wh en the revolt of B osnia
against the O ttoman Government opened that chain of
events which has culminated actually in the present
catastrophe
—
Morocco th e Balkans the O ttoman E mpire the
present war is not really being waged to settle th ese
problems : it is being waged because t h ey h ave been
settled already and settled on suc h unjust and inju
dicio u s lines t hat all parties concerned h ave found it
wort h while to stake their e xistence for the reversal of
th e settlement No one need have been involved by
such problems in a struggle for life They were all
problems of expansion and their solution ought at
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All th e b elligeren ts m ain tain that they too k u p arm s f o r self
preservatio n an d they all S peak tru th—it is a truism
1
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496
NATIONAL ITY A N D SOVERE IGNTY
wo rst to have disappoin ted th e e xpe ctation of im
moderate g ains it ought never as it has done to have
threatened the parties with th e loss of wh at th ey
possessed already before the problems were probed
Why has the contrary occurred ? Because j u st for
lack of that international executive with the sovereign
authority we postulate these issues t h at were not vital
have been fought out like issues of life and death by
—
war not by the war of arms which has descended
upon us now like some recurrent plague in to whi ch we
relapse at rarer and rarer intervals as we advance in
civilisation but by the unobtrusive unremittent war
of diplomacy which is being waged year in and year
out between t h e sovereign states of Europe and which
has increas ed app all ingly in violence durin g th e last
generation
In t his disastrous diplomati c warfare our opponents
in the present war of arms have been uniformly the
aggressors If Austria Hungary is now strug glin g
for existence it is becau se she deliberately embarked
nearly forty years ago upon a diplomatic campai gn of
1
aggrandisement agai n st South S lavoni c nationality
If
Germany is fighting back to back with her in the same
ghastly struggle it is because Germany has wielded
diplomatic weapons still more ru th lessly against her
other European neighbours
For the terrible embitte rment of the diplomatic
contest Germany herself is entirely responsible but she
has inevitably e xposed herself to reprisals as severe as
her own provo cative blows She open ed the battle
over Morocco by for cibly intruding upon a sphere
wh ere she h ad no shadow of claim to e xpansion
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v
d th e histo ry o f this cam paign
S ection B we ha e trace
In C h
eariso m e l en gth
w
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498
NATIONAL ITY A N D S OVE RE IGN TY
’
monster s tee th we shall no longer be troubled by its
still more monstrous off spring—War
Attack di plomacy
the reader will ex cl aim
Stated in these terms yo u r sch eme takes on a more
revolutionary aspect You are really demanding th at
the sovereign national state s h all delegate to your
international executive its en tir e sovereign ty in the
diplomatic sp h ere Wh en it grasps your intention wi ll
it not shrink from the sacrifice after all
Our answer can be no more th an a prophecy an d we
shall frame it best on th e analo gy of that asso ci ation
among in d ividuals of whi ch every sovereign state
co n sists
In the philosophy of the individual society it is a
common pl ace that liberty and political organisation
increase in a direct ratio to one another Mankind
”
has never lived in the State of Nature for if our
progenitors h ad not evolved th e Herd already th ey
would never h ave been able to evolve the Soul The
life of Ishmael wh ich sovereign states are lea d ing still
is a discredited myth in the individual s history
nevertheless when fir st he comes within our ken h e
has not committed himself entirely to the
So cial
”
Contract
The most pri m itive individual so cieties we know are
still in the ph ase of transition In almost every sp h er e
of life th eir members h ave already discovered th e value
of po h tical co -O peration but there is one anar c hic
tradition they have not yet brought themselves to
”
abandon— the Blood feud
Yet t h e Blood-feud too
is doomed and we watch it die out as t h e individual s
politi cal sense develops The incre asing politi cal
regulation of all oth er relations between man and man
eliminates occasions for the shedding of blood and
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NATIONAL ITY A N D SOVEREIGNTY
499
instead of being an everyday necessity murder becomes
a last resort The individual begins to think of it as a
dreadful exception to the normal reign of Law : he
misses here the liberty which Law has elsewhere given
him and longs here also to abandon unlimited rights
in order to cast off the burden of unlimited duties Then
the Blood feud dies o u t and Law wins undisputed
sovereignty withi n the state
Why S hould not the State itself repeat the history of
th e Individual ? If the evolution of individual societies
was compatible with the survival of the Blood feud
surely we need not despair of organising sovereign states
into a still greater political association merely because
they are unwilling to abandon the sovereign right of
War ; and if once this international org anisation is
accomp lished surely we can look forward with hope to
the eventual disappearance of War also States like
individuals must eventually discover th at the Blood
feud is a burden and that the sovereign right to wage
it is not Liberty but a mockery of it we shall be past
teac hing indeed if th e present catastrop h e is not a
su ffi cient object lesson for us If sovereignty means
freedom of choice when were the nations of Europe
ever less free to exercise their will than in the summer of
1914 ?
No ch oice was open to them O ne and all
they were compelled to turn aside from the pressing
task of so cial reconstruction upon which their h eart is
set and take up in self defence—poor sovereign puppets
—that task of mutual destruction for which they have
no heart at all
The political philosophy of Modern Germany
vehemently repudiates this analogy of ours It refuses
to regard the State and th e Individual as homologous
organisms
The Individual—his function is to merge
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NAT IONAL ITY AND SOVEREIGNTY
500
himself in the so ciety to which he belongs the State
For the State there is
that is the politi cal Absolute
”
no law no vision of a wider society
This dogma may be true or false that the future will
show yet this much we can proclaim at once If it is
true then European Civilisation is a failure
”
The function of Society says Aristotle is not to
”
make life possible but to make it worth living
This
saying at least applies not only to indi viduals but to
states Hitherto the national states of Europe have
been absorbed in the p reh m in ary struggle to secure
their existence If they can profit by the present crisis
to liberate their ener gy for h igher ends then the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand if inspiration fails th em
in this hour then we are witnessing the beginning of
”
great evils for Hellas and the Sovereign Nations of
Europe are doomed to the same destruction as the
Sovereign Cities of Greece
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THE M A P O F EUR O PE
50 2
are included besides the predominant Englis h-speak
ing population of Great Britain the considerable Wels h
and Gaelic minorities because though their Keltic
speech is entirely alien an d the Welsh at any rate h ave
a special literary and religious group consciousness of
their o wn they are all entirely fused into one politi cal
or ganism
In Ireland on the other hand the conquering
English tongue has triumphed far more universally th an
in the larger island and has almost reduced the native
Keltic dialect to extinction yet reli gion has been potent
enough to implant in three quarters of the Irish po pu la
tion a national consciousness totally distinct from t h e
British alt hough the vast majority of the Ca tho lic Irish
nation speaks Englis h as its native tongue In this
isl and the only adherents of t h e Britis h nationality are
the P rotestants of Ulster and they are the most fan ati cal
partisans it possesses because they are a minority or as
”
their enemies call th em a garrison planted on the
territory of an other nation and continu ally threatened
with ejection or forcible assimilation at t h e h ands of
1
the latter
This explains why t h e distribution of
stipples in the British Isles is considerably di ff erent from
that which would be presented on a linguisti c map
where the Erse -speaking Irish Catholi cs for instance
would be distinguished from their English-speaking
while no distinction would be made
co nationalists
between t h e latter and the Uster Protestan ts of identi cal
speech but violently antipathetic national fee ling
(2 ) B elfast though the capital of Ulster has attracted
by its immense mercantile and industrial development
a large urb an immi gration from the rural districts of
Cat holic Ireland so that a stron g m inority of its present
Co m pare th e position o f th e Germ ans in Bo hem ia
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
-
,
.
,
,
,
,
-
,
.
,
,
,
,
,
.
,
,
,
-
,
.
,
,
,
1
.
THE MAP OF EUROPE
50 3
population
monopolising solid blocks of
streets is intensely Nationalist It is of course im
possible to separate out this Catholic population of
Belfast from the rest of Ulster by any territorial frontier
and they are one of those m inorities that must inevitably
remain unsatisfied
(3 ) A Wels h man resident in Jersey once told the
author t h at h e was able to carry on a Keltic conversation
wit h th e B reton peasant women who came over from the
mainland for a fair yet though the Welsh and Breton
dialects are so little di ff erentiated there is no common
con sciousness wh atever between the populations that
speak th em
T he Breton is as good a French man as th e Welsh
man is a Britis h er
Th e Welshman is distinguis h ed
within the general British mass not so much by his
language as by his Nonconformity which he shares
with an important class of the whole English speaking
population the Breton is a clerical like his French
speaking Vende an neighbour not because of his Keltic
speech but because he is a peasant and inh abits a
district remote from the centres of French national life
(4) The French speaking Belgians or Wa llo ons have
unlike the Keltic speaking Bretons been left blank
because though they have several times in the past
been incorporated by conquest in the French state
they have never till lately shown any active desire for
1
its membership
If they ever break away from the
Flemings their secession will be due far less to
sympathy with th e neighbour nation with which they
s hare a common language t han to th e antip athy of
In co n trast to th e Fren ch sp eakin g po pu l ation o f a dis tr ict l i ke
Fran che Co m p té which till th e seven teen th cen tu ry lay o u tsid e th e
po litica l fro n tier o f Fran ce yet h as been co m p letely welded in to th e
.
,
,
.
,
.
.
,
-
,
'
,
,
.
-
,
-
,
,
,
,
.
,
,
1
-
-
,
,
Fren ch natio n
.
T HE MAP OF EUROPE
504
so cialists and free thinkers towards th e conservatism
and cleri calism of Flanders Th e heroic struggle for
freedom again st the Germans is more likely however to
fuse Walloons and Flemings into a really living Belgian
nationality
( 5) Th e Flem ings who together with the Walloo n s
constitute or will constitute in t h e future th e Belgian
nation speak a
Low German di alect h ardly dis
tin gu ish ab le from the Dutch but since the de cline of
medi e val Flemis h civilisation in t h e sixteent h century
French h as ousted the native idiom as the medium of
education and literature The Flemish literary revival
is a movement of very recent growt h th e Dutch on
t h e other h an d b egan to raise their patois into a culture
langua g e during the same sixteenth century and have
won it a permanent place beside French and High
German
T he gulf between Fleming and Dutchman has further
been accentuated by Religion
the Dutch be came
ardent Calvin ists while the Flemings were captured
by the Counter Reformation T hus there remains no
factor capable of inspiring a common national con
scio u sn ess and it is unlikely that such will arise in the
future unless the
Young Flemish
revival really
pervades th e wh ole Flemis h people an d brings linguistic
consciousness to th e forefront
Th
e
t
h
emselves
as
well
as
their
Flemish
t
D
c
h
u
6
(
( )
neighbours ) are claimed by Pan Germans as truant
members of t h e German nation because they speak
1
a
Low
German
d
alect
It
is
true
i
like
ourselves
)
(
that the peasant of the Zuider Zee polders and the
peasant on the Baltic co ast preserved a close dialectical
-
.
,
,
.
,
,
,
,
,
-
,
,
,
.
,
,
,
.
,
-
.
,
-
,
,
.
-
,
-
B read bu tter an d ch eese
A re g o o d E n glish an d go o d F ries
,
.
,
.
THE M A P OF EUROPE
6
0
5
France they would per haps ch oose if th ey could to
be left to their ins ular anarchy and would certainly
repent their choice before long if they did National
sentiment is hardly more strong
as opposed to local
in Sar d inia and Sicily than in Corsica and it is more
by chance th an cons cious will that two out of the
three islands h ave become united wit h the continental
speakers of their langu age in t h e Itali an national state
Si cily has revolted more than once s ince Garibaldi won
it for Italy in 1 860
( 1 0) Trieste is a city with an Italian nucleus and a
fringe of Slovene suburbs inhabited by the industrials
and dock hands wh om th e commercial development
of th e port has attract ed from the countryside T he
Itali an element has kept its hold upon the civic ad
ministration by preventing th e new Sloven e quarters
from incorporating the ms elves in the muni cipal area
“
The population of o flicial Trieste is
and
is predo mi nantly Italian the population of Greater
Trieste that is of the whole urban complexus centred
in the port totals nearly a hundred thous an d more
Reckonin g on thi s wider bas is the Sloven es can claim
over 1 8 per cent of the total population and the pro
portion is always s hifting in their favour
Their
admission to joint control of the muni cipality is o n ly
a qu estion of time an d Trieste is essentially a b i
national ci ty
( 1 1 ) The S lovenes the m selves are left blank
Common Slavdom may incline them to enter th e South
Slavonic u nion but th eir dialect diff ers from that of
their South Slavoni c neighbours and h as never de
v elo p ed a literature
Their culture is German an d
Italian and there are strong Germ an and Italian
elements in the population of the country If these
,
,
,
.
,
,
,
,
.
.
,
-
.
.
,
,
.
,
,
,
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.
,
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.
,
-
,
.
,
.
THE MAP OF EUROPE
50 7
influences prevail the Slovene Unit will prefer to stand
by itself
( 1 2 ) Th e S lo vaks along the Northern border of
Hungary spe ak the same dialect as t h e Tch ech s in
Austria but their history has proceeded on entirely
independent lines Their case is the same as th at of
the Croats and Serbs The stress of common p ersecu
tion awakened the consciousness of South Slavonic
nationality and the same causes may produce th e same
e ff ects upon Tch ech s and Slovaks There is no indica
tion however that this has happened yet and the two
peoples are therefore distinguished on the map
( 1 3 ) Pdsz ony (Pressburg) is a Hungarian town
situated on the North bank of the Danube at the point
where t h e Little Carpat hian range descends to the
river It is the meeting place of German Magyar and
Slovak but the German element predominates in t h e
1
population of the town itself
( 1 4) The M asurians are Poles in language but
culture religion and tradition link them to their German
neighbours in East Prussia and make their national
feeling unpredictable They are th erefore left blank
The Wends of Lusatia are left blank for the same
reason They are th e remnant of a Slavonic tribe the
S o rab s cut off by German expansion from t h eir kinsmen
furth er East
( 1 5) The Po m aks inhabit the Rhodope Mountains
in Thrace Linguistically th ey are Bulgarian Slavs
but like their South Slavonic kinsmen in Bosnia they
have been converted to Islam and the bond of religion
h as prevailed over the bond of speech
During the
campaign of 1 91 2 they were violent partisans of the
Turks and th eir guerilla bands harassed the communi
,
.
,
.
.
-
,
.
,
,
,
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,
-
.
,
,
.
,
,
,
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.
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,
,
.
.
,
-
,
.
,
1
at th e cen sus o f 1 90 0 .
THE MA P O F EUR O PE
50 8
cations of the Bulgarian army National cons ciousness
will probably be kindled in them as in the Bosniaks
by the spread of education but under present circum
sta nces it would be misleading to represent them as
Bulgars and accordingly they have been left blank
( 1 6 ) The Ta tars in B ulgaria are descended from
refugees transplanted by the Ottoman G overnment to
the South bank of the Danube when Russia annexed
the Bessarabian s teppes Since the T urkish frontier
retreated sti ll further in 1 878 the Tatars have been
left stranded under Bulgarian rule but though they are
sundered from the Bulgars by speech as well as reli gion
they have become completely reconcil ed to the new
situation While the Bulgar speaking Pomaks in
Rh odope were fighting for the Turks the T urkish
speakin g Tatars in Bulgaria were tending the fields of
their Christian neighbours wh o had been mobilised for
th e Turkish war
They are another instance in which
l angu age is no criterion of national fee ling
( 1 7) In Constan tinop le the Turkish element at present
possesses a majority over all the other elements com
b in ed but it will sink to the level of the Greek A rmenian
and Frank colonies as so on as the city is liberated
from Ottoman Sovereignty Constan tinople is essen ti
ally a cosmopolitan trading centre li ke Shanghai and
has no nationality of its o wn
( 1 8) In 1 91 3 Greece and Bulgaria fought for the
ownership of S a lon ika yet on grounds O f nationality
nei ther O f them has any claim to rule there for the
Gr eek and Bulgar elements in the ci ty are negligible
1
Two thirds of th e population are Spanish Jews
welcomed by the Ottoman Government after their
.
,
,
,
,
.
.
,
,
,
-
.
,
.
.
,
,
,
.
-
,
.
,
,
.
-
,
App ro xim ately
yet b een tak e
1
n.
out of
Exact statistics have n ever
TH E MA P O F EUROPE
510
(2 3) More than half the population of S myrna is
Greek the remainder is cosmopo litan Geograp h ically
th e city is the chief commercial centre of the Anatolian
peninsula and is marked out to be the capital of a
diminis h ed T urkey The Smyrniots are one of the
richest most cultured and most influential Gr eek
communities in the World but if Smyrna were annexed
to t h e Kingdom of He llas and detached from its conti
n en tal hinterland they would be ru ined
(2 4) The M aron ite and Druse communities in the
Lebanon speak Arabic like their Moslem neigh bours
but difference of religion and a tr adition of local
autonomy have combined to imp lant in each of t h em a
corporate feeling of their own Druse and Maronite
vi llages are so intri cately intermingled that it has
been impossible to distinguish one commun ity from
the oth er on the map
(2 5) Th e Geo rgians are a Caucasian people wh o
remained loyal to th e Orthodox Church when all their
neighbours adopted Islam They developed a strong
sense of nationality durin g their stru g gle for inde
i
aga
nst Persia and Turkey t h e great Moslem
d
en
e
e
c
n
p
powers but about a century ago they placed themselves
under the protection of their Russian co religionists
and since then th ey h ave rapidly become Russian ised
Th eir nationalism has thus been con d itioned by reli gion
and not by language and they have no feeling of
brotherhood with their L azic neighbours who speak
an identical diale ct but are devout Moslems The
Lazes on their part sympathise with the Turks and
when the Ottoman armies penetrated beyond the R u ssian
frontier in Jan u ary 1 91 5 the L azic population flocked
to their standard
To ta l po p u lation abo u t
1
,
.
,
,
.
,
,
,
,
.
,
.
.
.
,
,
-
,
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,
,
.
,
'
,
.
1
TH E MAP
OF EURO P E
51 1
(2 6 ) Tiflis was the capital of the Georgian national
kingdom but under the Russian regime it has attracted
a large Armenian population and has even become the
chief Asiatic focus of Armenian national life
The
K
a
l
u
s
of
the
Cis
Caucasian steppe are
m ck
(2 7)
distinguished from their nomadic neighbours by both
language and religion They are a community of
Mongol Buddhists which sought refuge within the
Russian frontier when the Man chus conquered Mongolia
in the seventeenth century The Russian Government
transplanted them to this distant quarter of the Empire
to h old the Turkish-speaking Moslem tribes in check
,
,
.
.
.
,
.
NATIONAL ITY AND THE WAR
5 14
Au s tri a H u n ga ry s ee H a p sb ur g
M o n a r ch y
Au stri a n Cr o wn L a n ds P ar h a m en t
,
’
( R ei ch s r a t h ) 1 7 5 3 1 26 1 3 7 1 94 ,
,
,
,
,
,
201 , 220 2 6 6 -8 , 3 1 2
Au st ri a n K u sten l a n d , 21 4, 24 8 -9
A u s i a n L l o yd S t ea m s h i L i n e, 1 09
l
Au st r i an il i ta r y Fr o n ti ers, 1 74
Au s tr i an S u ccessm n , W ar o f , 1 1 4
Au stri a n S u d b a h n , 25 8
A l o n a , 227, 229, 23 3 , 23 6 , 25 4 -5
A z er b a u a n , 3 94 -6 , 4 5 5 , 4 6 5
,
p
fi
'
M
.
B
B
B
B
e
a
en
a
on ,
er
o u se o
,
on ,
a
en ,
a
a
a
,
,
,
-
,
,
,
,
a
ai
,
,
,
,
-
a
,
,
,
,
,
,
a
r ein
s an
ai
a
,
a
a
i
a ri s ,
-
a
u,
,
,
a
u , ri o s a
a
a n s,
-
a
-
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
-
,
”
,
an
an
,
ar ,
i rs
,
,
ar,
eco n
,
a
,
e,
.
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
-
,
,
a
ic
ro v
a
ic
ea ,
,
,
,
-
ces,
-
,
-
,
,
29 7, 3 1 0-1 1 , 3 1 8 , 3 3 7 , m
A, 3 6 4,
3 6 9, 3 74 , 45 4 , 4 6 4 , 4 8 2
al u ch i tri es, 4 6 5
a sh k i rs , 3 08 , 3 21 , 3 22, 3 28
a sra
43 9 , 44 0, 4 5 4
a to u m , 1 09
a ari a , 2 1 , 8 2 -3 , 8 7, 92, 1 03 , 26 1
eir u t , 4 2 9, 4 4 4
elf ast , 5 02 -3
elg iu m , 5 6 , 6 3 , 1 01 , 103 , 273 , 2 75
4 75 , 4 78 , 4 8 2 -4 , 48 7,
.
B
B
B
B
B v
B
B
B
b
,
e,
ra
,
el
ra
e
,
erc
er
B
B
B
B
B
B
,
ea ce o
rea
an
,
on
n ,
,
,
,
e,
o
,
,
,
,
e,
n
oun ,
r ess o
B p
B
B b
B
v
B
B
B x
B
p
B
B
B
b g
B
B
B
B b g
B
P
B
B
B
T
b
,
.
B
.
gag
B
bb
B g
B z
p
C
C l ph t
a e,
f gé
C p t C
tul t
C
féé
C pp a d
e- o -
a ir o
a i o ns
w y 33
T k y 4 1 7 4 23
Ra il
111
a
,
ur
e
,
,
,
‘
1 8 7 -8 , 1 90, 23 1 -2, 2 79, 3 6 0, 3 80
408 , 4 3 0
essa ra i a , 3 06 - 8 , 3 6 1 , 5 08
eu th en , 6 8 , 8 9
25 , 8 1 , 90-1 , 9 3 , 1 00, 1 03 ,
i sm ar ck
1 08 , 1 3 2, 244 , 26 5 , 2 72, 274 -5
28 7, 3 03 , 3 25
l ack F o r est , 1 01 , 1 03
l ac k S ea , 1 01 , 1 3 8 , 1 6 8 , 1 94, IV
,
2 8 3 , 28 4 , 2 8 8 297 , 3 1 0, 3 1 8 , 3 3 7
3 3 9 , IX
, 3 8 9 , 3 9 1 , 3 9 7, 4 20, 4 26
l ack S ea S tr ai ts, 1 90, 203 , 223 , 23 6 ,
,
.
B
B
,
a
,
.
B
'
a
-
,
89
4 04 -5 , 407, 4 3 5 , 4 5 1
C al v m i s m , 149 , 5 04 -5
l a , 3 5 , 3 21 , 3 27, 3 29, 3 3 0, 3 3 3 ,
Ca
-
,
B
.
ai
B lg d 16 4 1 6 7 8 1 72 1 8 0 1 96
201 204 2 07 225 28 9
f 1 4 4 1 72
B g d P
B lt G t d I ttl 3 5 0
B h t l d C t 205 21 0
h
C g
f
13 9
B
e
v
B o sm a k s, IV
5 08
,
B o sn an B a l l w a y , 1 96 204,
gsi
o s h o ru s ( see
l a ck S ea S tra i ts ) ,
23 6 , 3 3 8 , I X
48 2
,
o th n i a n G u l f , 3 43
o u r o n s , 3 25
o y a n a R i er , 2 04 , 23 0
o yn e ,
a ttl e o f th e, 1 5 0
o ers , 3 7 1
ra ch y ce h ali s m , 413
r a h u i tr1 b es, 4 6 5
r ail a , 224
r an d en ur , 21
1 04, 26 1
rem en , 8 8
r esl a u , 6 4 , 70, 26 1
r eto n s , 1 5 1 , 5 03
B I l Il dl S I , 22 7
ro m
er , 7 3 , 7 9
u d a - est , 1 06 , 1 1 8 , 1 4 0, 1 4 1 , 1 4 3 ,
1 79 , 1 8 0, 1 8 3 , 21 7, 220
u ddh i sm ,
u k arest , 23 7
u k ar est ,
rea ty o f , 206 , 223 , 225 ,
23 6 24 2
B u k o v m a , 3 05 , 3 07
u l d ur , 4 1 9 , 4 2 7
ul g a ri a , 1 0, 1 5 , 1 06 , 1 8 8 -9 , 1 94 ,
1 98 , 203 , 206 -8 , 223 , 226 , 23 6 -24 2 ,
25 1 , 2 77 , 3 07 , 3 6 0 3 6 2 , X A , 5 08
r , 1 6 8 , 1 8 2, 1 9 1 , 23 7 -24 2, 3 06 ,
B u
g
u n d er A
46 5
as ,
u r u n dy , 8
y an tin e E m i r e, 5 2
3 80
B b th L i 4 72
b
f 1 04
B b
g H
B b yl 4 4 2 4 5 2
B d 83 8 7
B g d d 3 22 3 93 44 2 4 44 7 4 5 0
45 2 4 5 4 4 9 7
B g d d R l w y 3 7 4 1 9 4 20 4 25 7
4 46 44 8
B h
I l d 46 4
B k l L k 3 28 3 3 0 1
45 7 8
B kt y
B k 3 95 4 1 4 45 5
B k
t
t 3 88
B lk
5 2 1 22 IV
279 28 1 2 96
3 6 0 1 36 3 3 83
5 04 5
B lk W F t
23 2
240 25 5 3 71
B lk W S
d 9 206 224
23 6 23 8 2 7 7 3 7 9 3 8 2 3 5 08
3 01 3
B lt P m
B
B l t S 4 9 6 6 71 2 76 7 2 8 8 B
ar
b
.
.
B
a
P
O
v
B
3 3 8 , 3 4 1 , IX
3 8 5 , 3 98 , 4 1 7,
,
4 24 - 5 , 4 28 , 4 5 4 , 4 6 4 , 4 8 1 -2, 4 93
B o g u m fl s ( a u li ci ans ) , 1 7 0, 2 1 8
o h em i a , 6 6 -7 , 9 2, 9 8 , 1 06 , 1 11 -2,
1 25 -1 3 7 , 1 4 1 , 1 4 7, 25 8 , V 28 1 , 5 02
om
a y , 1 09
o sn a R i er , 1 6 7, 1 70
1 98
o sm a , 1 00, 1 1 2, 1 44 , IV
,
4 3 0, 49 5 ,
2
, 21 0 6 , 23 2,
C
,
a
o ci a ,
4 13 , 4 26
C a p p o d o m a n s, 4 1 4
C ar o h n e I sl an ds , 3 6
a r a th i a n M o u n ta ins , 6 6 , 76 , 1 04 ,
IV A 1 6 7 , 1 6 9 , 21 6 -7 , 21 9, 24 7 ,
28 4 , 28 8 , 292, 3 05 , 3 07, 3 1 0,
,
C p
.
,
365
C p thi
ar
a
a n s,
L i ttl e 1 04 5 07
,
,
CaS p i a n S ea , 3 1 8 , 3 8 9 , 3 95 -7, 449,
4 5 5 , 4 73
Ca th erm e, E m r ess o f R u ssia , 1 75 ,
513 1 90, 29 7, 3 3 7
p
INDEX
1
5 5
Al p 1 6 7 16 9 1 72 1 79 1 8 6
C tt Fj d 1 1 0 1 73 1 8 2 204 D
2 1 4 2 3 0 23 2 25 4
ggi
h 1 8 3 23 2
C
1 09
3 20 3 88 9
D
3 90 1
28 4 3 1 0
3 9 6 7 4 4 9 45 5 4 73
D
p R v
t R v
C ld
f th N
th 3 3 1
D
3 06 7 3 1 0
209
23 7
C v
dJ
D b
C yl 1 09
D
R v
1 6 5 3 10
b 1 92
Ch l d
D g
f S
(A y
"
) 3 93 5 4 3 7
Ch l m g 4 0 4 05
1 09 1 14 IV B
h O t
D
g
Ch l f L x m b g 26 2
gés
Ch l th B l d 275
D v R v 1 06 1 40 1 4 2 1 46 1 6 6
IV B 24 7 25 8 9
l dj
L
Ch
1 8 2 203 208 3 6 4
f gg
D
205 228 23 0
R v
Ch
m
3 21
D
Wh t 229 23 0 3 8 7
3 15
D
Ch m g
R v
1 6 7 1 76 1 99 204
28 3 1 7 3 27 3 3 0 5 4 42 4 4 7
D
43 7 8 5 1 0
01
D bl
13
473
St k
Ch r b t 1 6 9
D l g
23 0 3 23 5
Ch v h 3 21
D
28 3 3 01
R v
Cl
T
l 4 25
D
zz 205 207 228 9 23 5 6
C t t P l l g 366
D thg d m
A lb m
3 75
C t t P phy g
D t h
t
S Af
32
1 03
C t t p l 1 6 9 1 7 0 1 8 2 23 5 6
24 5 29 5 3 22 I X B 3 8 2 3 90 4 08
4 1 9 4 20 4 3 7 4 94 5 08
t
C
C
l f 26 2
C f 1 09 24 9
E
t I d
C
p
y
m
45 5
C th G l f 228
E
t I d
3 03 5 05
2
5 3 5 05 6
C
Ed
3 93
C
k
28 3 3 2 8 9
d
w
d VII
1 97
C t z 224
Eg
t
2 28
V
C l d 3 01 3
E g yp t 1 09 3 73
410
3
99
404
5
C w 7 6 1 3 2 28 5 6
43 5 4 4 2 4 46
C m 3 16
E gyp t
4 04
2
W
C m
98 4 1 9 4 22 43 6
E gh t
th t
23
1 4 5 1 5 7 1 6 6 IV
C t Sl v
Elb R v
23 4 9 8 2 8 8 26 4 3 3 9
B 24 8 26 0 3 4 3
351 2
C t 1 4 5 IV B 5 07
E m T l g m 202
C d F t 3 91
Ep
1 10 23 3 5 5 09
B ttl f 99
C t
E
L
g
5 02
C xh v 88
E
G
b
g
6 7 6 9 26 4
2
C yp
4 9 4 3 1 5 09
E th l
d 3 02 3
or
a ro
a
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-
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on
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r
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o ur
ra
e
i
.
,
,
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ov ,
rin a
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a s,
es ,
unn e ,
o n s an
in e
o ns a n
in e
o n s an
in o
,
,
,
,
a ai o o o s ,
or
r o en n e o s ,
e,
,
,
,
,
.
i an
u
,
o s an
ur a
o,
u
c
u
c
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-
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en
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ar
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o
r i ca ,
.
,
,
as
n
ia
as
n
i es ,
o
an
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essa ,
ar
.
n a ia
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ia ,
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,
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,
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,
1 1 0, 1 20, 1 4 4 , IV
éié
B 24 7
.
4 3 7 9 4 4 0 444 5
D
4 03
m
a
a
D b R v 6 6 III 1 25 IV 25 8
26 1 3 06 7 3 8 5 5 07 8
f 224
D b
vg t
D b
P
p lt
-
scu s,
,
an u
e, n a
an u
i an
,
,
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,
,
,
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i
a ion
rin ci
,
o
,
a i i es,
R o u m a ni a
D a n Z Ig , 71 , 7 4 , 7 6 , 8 3 , 8 8 , 27 2, 28 8 ,
4S7
l ac k S ea S tr a i ts ) ,
ar d a n ell es ( see
1 7 0, 3 3 8 , I X
, 3 8 2, 4 8 2
D a ri el , a ss o f , 3 8 9
a ri u s th e G r ea t , 41 5 , 44 2, 4 5 0, 4 5 4
ar k A e s, 8 , 2 1 -2, 3 7 4 , 3 8 4 , 4 05
eak , 1 20
D ed ea g a t ch , 3 8 0-1
A,
en m ar k , 2 5 , 4 8 , 8 1 , 3 3 8 , IX
3 6 4 , 3 6 9 , 3 7 0 3 74 , 4 8 2, 4 8 6 -7
i a r ek r , 4 3 7 , 4 4 7
D
B
B
.
.
,
e e ra
,
-
,
,
r se
an
u ag e,
rz
e
ir
e,
s
an
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-
p
p
p
v
.
.
K
,
-
-
,
,
-
,
,
er ,
i
,
E tch n n a z rn , 3 9 0, 3 94
E u h r a tes R i er , 3 90, 3 9 2-3 , 401 ,
43 2 , X E
E u h r a tes , E astern , 3 9 3
E u h r a tes, W estern ( ar a S u ) , 3 91
D
l a tl a ,
i r een ,
er ,
ir u s ,
en ,
P
g
een -
-
a
u s ozza,
,
,
i
,
e,
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,
i a ns ,
ar,
a
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r o a s,
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D
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,
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ri
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ri
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,
,
un a
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a
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-
in
ea ,
u
i
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ra co
,
e,
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no,
a,
o ur an
er ,
u ci
,
s,
o ssac
,
,
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o rS i ca ,
,
-
,
o r in
.
,
,
o u n ci
or u ,
,
,
o n s an z ,
,
,
ru ses,
u
i i ci a n
s en ,
er ,
i
er
as
ia,
-
,
ri n ,
u
er
o
n ac
i sses ,
o
,
,
,
in es,
,
,
u een
n
er e
,
-
er ,
a,
ri n
1 11
,
a,
i
ra
,
,
o
a
-
ri an s
ss
a
a r es
,
,
,
,
er ,
o ur ,
aea n s
,
i
a
ar e
,
,
r
ni e
,
ron o
a
s,
,
au casu s ,
au
ic
i
P
F a r s ( ersi s ) , 4 5 2, 4 5 5 -6 , 4 5 9
F er di n a n d , E m er o r o f Au str i a , 98
F i f e, 6 7
Fi l a n d , 3 21 , 3 4 0-8 , 3 5 6 , 3 5 8 , 3 97,
i53
Fin l a n d , G u l f o f , 3 01 -2
F in l a n d , S e des i n , 3 41
a
s , 3 08 , 3 22
Fi u m e, 1 09, 1 7 9 , 1 8 0, 204 , 21 4 , 21 7,
22 2, 224 , 5 09
Fiu m e , R eso l u ti o n s o f , 1 94 -5
Fl em i n s , 5 03 -4
Fl ens u r , 5 0
F o rei n L egi o n , F ren ch , 3 73
F o rth , Fi rth o f , 6 7
”
’
F o rty E i h t , 8 7, 9 8 , 1 1 7, 4 7 8
p
i
w
g
b g
g
g
5 16
NATIONAL ITY AND THE WAR
Arch du k e o f
Fr a n cis -F er di n an d ,
Au st ri a , 1 3 6 , 209
Fr a n cis - o se h , 99 , 1 1 7 -8 , 1 27 , 1 3 6 ,
1 5 5 -7 , 1 75 1 8 1
Fr a n k fu rt , 93
Fr ed eri ck II , H o h en sta u f en , 90
Fr ed eri ck th e G rea t , 2 3 , 9 1
Fr en ch R e o l u t i o n , 9 , 1 1 5 , 28 6 , 3 25
ri al , 200-2
Fn ed J u n g
J
p
.
.
v
T
G a els 6 7 5 02
,
,
G a h ei a , 5 3 , 5 7-8 , 6 0, 1 00 1 6 6 , 24 7 ,
2 6 7 , 28 4 , 28 8 , 290-1 , 2 93 , 3 06 - 7
3 1 1 -5 , 3 1 8
G a lli o l i , 1 7 0 203 , 3 6 2, 3 6 5
G a ri al di , 2 1 2 , 25 3 , 5 06
G en o a , 25 2 25 7
G eo rgi an s , 3 8 8 , 3 9 0-1 , 5 1 0
G erm a n
o n f ed era ti o n , 4 8 -9
G er m a n s i n Au st ri a , 9 0, 9 2, 94 -7 ,
III , 1 02, 1 1 2 1 23 -1 3 7 , 1 4 8 -9, 1 77
22 0, 24 6 -7 , VI 5 02
erm a n s i n H u n ar y , 1 4 2, IV A
erm a ns i n R us5 1a , 3 02 3 , 3 06 , 3 1 6
Gl ad sto n e 23 2
Gl ei wi t , 6 8
esert , 3 3 0- 2
Go i
p
b
,
,
C
,
.
g
b D
z
.
H ej a z 4 3 4 4 3 8 4 4 0 4 4 6
H ej a z R a il wa y 403 4 3 7 4 4 4 446
H elg o l a n d 8 8
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
29 6 , 5 00
H el m u n d R i er , 4 6 6 , 4 74
H enr y VII , 273
H era t , 4 6 6 , 46 9, 4 7 3
B en R u d , 4 5 2 , 4 6 9 , 4 73
H esse arm s tad t , 9 2
H in du u s h , 3 8 8 , 4 6 6 , 4 6 9, 4 7 3
Hi n du s , 3 9 9, 4 00, 4 04 , 4 4 9, 4 5 0
Hi tti te s, 4 14
H o h en s ta u fen yn ast y , 2 1 , 4 06
H o l enz o ll ern
yn as ty, 8 1 , 9 3 , 94,
l a
H o ll a n d , 26 , 26 2, 273 , 27 5 , 29 7, 3 5 1 ,
4 8 7 , 5 04 -5
H o lste in , 3 5 0, 3 5 3 -8
H o l y R o m a n E m ir e, 4 9 , 9 0, 4 05 -6
H o s i tall ers , see n i h ts o f S t o h n
H o rm u S tra i ts’, 4 5 5 , 4 5 9, 4 6 4 -5
H u n dr ed Years W a r , 2 75
H u n a ry , 6 6 , 9 8 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 8 -1 25 ,
1 3 5 , IV
3 05 , 3 1 6 , 3 4 6 , 4 5 3 , 4 8 7,
4 8 9, 5 07
Hu n s, 4 49
H us s, o h n , 26 2
ell as ,
v
.
D
K
D
D
i
p
p
K g
z
J
g
J
,
G o th s 3 8 5
G o ttsch ee 24 8 25 0
G ra d o 25 8
Gra u denz 6 4 8 0
Gr a v o sa 1 1 0
G reece Ki n g d o m o f 203 207 223 6
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
-
,
,
,
,
229 , 23 3 - 5 , 2 3 7 - 9 , 24 1 , 3 3 2, 3 6 6 ,
3 7 , 3 83 , 3 9 7, 4 28 - 4 3 2, 4 8 6 , 5 08
51
G reek s , 1 5 , 1 9 1 , 23 8 -9, 5 09
G reek s m Tu r k ey , 3 6 5 - 3 78 , 4 01 -3 , X
, 5 08
G rey, S ir E d ar d , 45 8 , 4 6 1
G u l f S trea m , 3 4 0
8
D
,
-
,
,
Ib r a h i m P a sh a 44 0
Il l yr i cu m 1 4 2
I m br o s I sl a n d 3 6 2 3 6 5
I n di a 3 4 1 09 3 27 3 3 2 3 3 4 5 3 74
X C XL 4 9 1
I n di a B ri t i sh r o u te t o 1 8 3 279 3 6 3
,
,
,
I
w
.
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
3 98 , 4 3 0- 1
In di a , o sl em s i n , 3 9 8 , X , 4 43
In di a , N W Fr o n ti er o f , 209, 3 89,
4 3 7 , 4 70
In di a n O cea n , 4 4 1 , 4 5 4 , 4 6 0, 4 8 6
In du s Ri er , 4 5 5 , 4 6 6 , 4 74
In du stri al R e o l u ti o n , 1 1 , 27, 6 7,
1 2 7, 1 3 0, 1 3 2, 274 , 28 7,
M
.
C
.
v
v
O
In terregn u m G rea t 90
I o m a n I sl a n ds 24 9
I p e k 23 0
Ira k Ar a b i X E 4 49 4 9 3
Ir a n P l a tea u o f 3 95 4 3 3 X I
,
,
,
H a dr a m a u t 4 41
,
,
H a fi , th e, 6 6
H a i f a , 4 44
H al y s, s ee i z il Irm a k
H a b u r g , 4 9 , 8 8 , 1 1 3 , 1 22 , 1 3 3 , 2 6 4
m
K
z z
H a m m erfest , 24 4 , 3 49
H a n o er , 8 1
H a n sa o n s , 8 8
H a s ur
yn as ty , 25 , 6 7, 9 1 , 93
1 1 8 , 1 3 6 , 1 4 6 , 1 4 8 , 1 7 1 2 5 2,
,
3
H a s u r M o n a r ch y ( Au stri a or
Au stri a -H u n a r y ) , 21 , 5 1 -2, 9 0,
9 5 , III 1 4 4 , 1 6 5 , 24 6 , 4 6 6 , 4 9 6
’
a p sb u r g M o n a r ch y s Al l i a n ce
Germ a n y , 1 1 3 , 1 3 2, 4 78
H asa , a l , 43 9
H a ar as , 4 6 6
H ein e, 28 6
v
T w
pb g D
£1
pb g
z
.
g
.
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
I r el i d , 1 2, 1 4 , 2 1 0, 224 ,
5
In sh C ath o h e N a ti o n al i sts, 1 8 , 13 4 ,
gé
I i o n G a te s
1 40
,
I sk a n deru n 3 98 4 25 4 29 4 3 2 4 44 5
I sk a n deru n G u l f o f 3 9 7 4 3 2
I sla m
434 6
X C 413
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
4 5 0- 2,
4 03 , 4 3 4 5 ,
, H o l y C i t i es o f , 4 00,
égé
I sl a i
4
I sp a h a n , 4 5 6
st r i a , 21 0 2 1 7 24 8 9,
ta l i a n m a n u ac tu r es , 2 5 2
u st ri a , 1 02, V , 26 4 , 26 7
ta l i a n s i n
I
I
I
A
f
.
.
5 18
NAT IONAL ITY AND THE WAR
Ma l t 3 91 4 26
M l t 3 73
M m l k 4 05
M h t S h l 1 27
M h D y ty 3 3 0 5 1 1
3 3 0 3 49
M h
M b g 21 7 25 9 26 0
hf l d 1 04 5 1 6 8
M
h R v
1 04 1 4 0 1 41 26 1
M
9 1 1 15 1 4 4 1 7 4
M i Th
M t R v 23 8 9 X A
f IX B 3 85
S
M m
43 6 7 5 1 0
mt
M
M
R v
142 1 6 4
M h ll I l d 3 6
yk P f
201 2
M
M
L k
77
M
78 8 0 3 02 5 07
M kl b g 49
a ia ,
a
a,
a
u
s,
es er
an c
u
c
oo
n as
,
an c u r i a ,
ur
,
,
arc
,
er ,
i
,
er esa ,
ar a
,
,
ur
.
.
,
p
p
p
-
,
,
,
v
,
M
45 3 46 7
M p t m 3 93
M g
M tim
St
1 09
L
M t R v 23 8 9 3 8 0
er v ,
,
eso
o a
essa
eri es
i a,
ari
e a m sh i
es
p
i n e,
es a
i
-
er ,
,
M etk o v 1t ch 204 21 4
M et o y a 2 29 23 5
rin ce 9 8 1 75
M etterm ch
M et 4 4
,
,
z
Mx
P
,
,
,
,
,
,
330
M ex ico , Gul f o f , 3 28
M i l a n ( i ty ) , 1 01 , 21 1
i l an O b r en O V i tch , 1 8 8 190, 1 92
Mi r di te s, 5 09
Ml B Sl S Sl p p l Ri er , 3 20, 3 28
a y , 1 96 , 24 2
i tro i t a Ra i l
M i ty h ni I sl a n d , 23 5 , 4 02 , 4 28 , 4 3 1
yn ast y, 405 , 4 5 1
o gu l
a ttl e o f , 1 43 , 1 7 1
o h acs,
M o h a m m a d th e ro h et, 405 , 4 4 0
M o l d a i a , 1 4 2, 3 07
o n asti r , 1 9 0, 2 25 , 228 -9 , 24 1 2
o n o na , 4 1 3 , 5 1 1
M o n o na , O u ter , 3 3 0-1
o n o l s 28 4 , 296 , 3 09 -1 0, 3 93 , 3 9 5 ,
4 4 3 , 4 49 , 45 0- 1 , 4 5 6 , 46 6
M o n o h y si tes , 4 3 7
M o n r o e o ctri n e , 24 4 , 3 76
o n ten eg r o , 1 1 0, 1 8 2, 1 8 5 , 1 8 7 8 ,
1 9 0, 1 9 2, 1 99 , 203 , 204 , 2 1 1 , 21 3 - 5 ,
229 - 23 3
o o rs i n S a in , 4 1 5
o ra a Ri er , 1 6 4 , IV
, 225 , 23 7
M o r a i a , 1 06 , 1 1 1 , 1 41 , V
o r a i a n G a p , 6 6 , 6 8 9 , 1 6 8 , 26 1 ,
26 4 -5
M o r d v m s , 3 21
M o rm o n s , 3 28
M o r ea 1 1 0
o r o cco , 3 99, 41 1
o r o cc o cri ses , 5 , 209, 4 9 5 6
M o sco , 3 09 , 3 1 1
i al ect , 3 09 , 3 1 9
o sco
e i co ,
C
M
M
M
M
M
M g
g
M g
v z
D
B
v
M
M
M
M
w
P p
,
p
M
M
M
v
D
v
v
v
,
w
wD
p
v
.
z
337
,
,
N a l es , 1 01
N a o l eo n I 9 , 2 2- 3 6 4 , 75 , 98 , 1 7 3
4 , 25 3 , 28 6
N a o l eo n III , 99, 209
N a r en t a Ri v er , 1 6 9 , 204 , 214
esert , G r ea t , 4 3 9
N ef u d
N ej d , 4 3 9 , 44 0
N em a n y a
yn a sty , 1 70
N es to ri an s , see h a l daea n s
N et h erl a n ds , 8 , 3 4 1 , 3 5 1
N et e R i er , 7 1 , 73
N eu e F r ees P r esse, 200
N eu P o m i n ern , 3 6
N ew Gu i n ea , 3 5
N ew Y o r k , 3 4 0, 3 76
N ew Z ea l a n d , 3 5 , 3 3 3 , 4 1 0
N i ch o l as ,
sar , 9 9, 1 1 7 , 1 9 7 , 24 0
N i ch o l as, P ro cl a m a ti o n o f G ra n d
u k e, 5 6 , 74 , 2 8 2
N i em en R i er , 77 - 8 0, 28 3 29 2
N i k ari a Isl a n d , 4 28
N is h , 23 7 , 23 9, 24 2
Ni
a , 25 3
a t a rs, 3 1 5
N o ai
N o rm an s , 1 1 , 21
N o rt h S ea , 4 9 , 5 1 , 8 8 , 1 1 3 , 3 3 9 , 3 4 8 ,
3 5 0-1 , 3 5 7 , 4 8 3
N o r a y , 1 6 9 , 3 4 0-5 , 3 4 7, 3 4 9, 4 5 3 - 4 ,
4 77, 4 8 6
N o a ra ,
a ttl e o f , 99
o r o d , 3 09 , 3 1 1 , 3 21 , 3 4 0
No
No
o r o d , N i j n i , 3 21
D
,
,
.
,
D
,
M eh em et A l i 4 40
M eissen 26 1
M ek ra n 4 5 5
M em el 79
M er ch a n t Ad en tu r ers
M ersm a 4 25 445
,
,
,
r o esso r ,
asa r
,
a es ,
a sur i a n
asu r i an s ,
,
,
en
.
,
i er ,
a ri sa
ea o ,
o ra ,
ar
es ,
aro
,
i er ,
ar o s
,
s a n s,
a rs a
ec
,
-
e
arc
p
v
M z gP g
v
w z
,
,
,
M
,
,
,
v
o sell e
R i er , 4 4 93
M o sk a 10 p h i l s , 3 1 2
M o su l , 4 3 7 , 4 4 4 -6
u l h a u s en , 4 7 - 8
M ur a d S u see E u h r a tes , E a ster n
M ur R i er , 1 6 7, 2 1 4 , 25 9
r o r a m m e 1 91 - 2 1 9 6
u r ste
M u sco i tes, see R us si a n s, G r ea t
M y sl o i t , 6 8
,
an c
ar
M
,
B
.
C
v
T
D
v
.
zz
g T
w
v
vg
vg
B
v
v
O b i R i er , 3 28
O der R i er , 6 6 -9 7 1 -2 8 3 , 26 1
O d essa , 28 8 , 3 06 -7, 3 1 6 , 3 1 8 , 3 3 7,
361
O h r i d a , 1 5 , 22 8 , 24 2
o n en t i o n o f , 99
O lm u t ,
O m a n , 4 6 4 4 86
eln , 6 8 -9
O
O ri en t al R a i l a y , 23 7
O r sm i , 2 09
O rth o d o Ch u r ch , 1 6 9, 1 7 0, 2 13 , 2 15 ,
23 4 , 3 1 1 3 9 4 , 5 1 0
u n k er ,
8 2 , 84 , 8 7,
O st -E l b i sch er
90
O th m a n , H o u s e o f , 405
O tr a n t o , S t r a i t s o f , 24 5
I a nd II
H o l y R o m an
O tto
E m er o r s , 1 03
,
z C v
pp
,
w
x
,
p
.
J
,
INDEX
T
O tto m a n , see ur k i sh
O u s Ri er , 3 3 1 , 3 3 6 ,
4 6 6 -7, 46 9, 4 7 2-3
x
v
3 99,
P
45 1
b
P a ch tu tr i es, 4 6 6 , 4 6 8 , 4 70
P a C ifi c O cea n , 3 5 , 3 28 , 4 5 4
a l a t in a te , 93
a mi r
l a t ea u , 3 3 1 , 4 6 6 , 4 70
P a i g rm a m sm , 5 6 , 1 1 3 -4 , 1 2 2, 4 1 0
o
P a n sl a V i sm , 5 6 , VII , 3 5 9
a a cy , 25 , 2 1 2, 2 15 , 4 05 , 48 1
a a l Z o u a es, 3 73
arsees, 4 5 0
a tm o s I sl a n d , 429
a tr as , 22 7
a u l i ci a n s , see B o g u m il s
ek in L e a ti o ns , r eh ef o f , 3 7 1
ell a , 1 5
ersi a , 3 22, 3 94 , 3 96 , XL , 4 77, 4 86 ,
4 93 -4 , 5 1 0
er si a ,
el i a n
u sto m s S er v m e in ,
3 74 , 4 6 1
P e i i , S ed i sh G en d arm er i e i n , 3 74 ,
P
gf
P p
P p
v
P
P
P
P
P
g
P
P
P
B g
w
fii
.
C
P erS i a n G u lf , 1 1 3 , 1 22, 1 3 3 , 3 97 , 4 3 3
4 3 8 -9, 4 4 2, 4 4 4 , 4 4 6 , XI 4 8 2, 4 9 7
er si a n R e o l u t i o n , 3 95 , 4 5 7
er si a n s , 3 95 4 04 , XI
esh a
ar , 4 7 3
eter t h e G r ea t , 296 , 3 25 , 3 3 7
6 01
K a rag eo rg eV i tch , 1 94 , 209,
15
eters u r , 5 4 , 13 2, 29 7, 3 1 1
etr o r a d , 3 1 8 , 3 4 3
45 , 4 7
h al s o u r
h i li
o f M ace d o n , 296
o o li s 23 6 , 3 8 1
h i li
h r y i a ns , 4 1 4
i edm o n t , 21 2
i e dm o n t ese , 99
P i g IV a r 1 96
P il i tz a R i er , 5 9
l e n a , S i e e o f , 4 08
P 0 R i er , 98 , 2 5 2
o d o li a , 3 1 5
o l a , 1 1 1 , 25 4
o l a n d , 1 3 2 , 2 1 9 , 26 1 , 26 4 , VIII A
3 00, 3 02 - 3 , 3 08 , 3 1 0, 3 4 0, 3 44 -5 ,
3 9 7, 4 5 9 , 4 8 6 , 48 7
a rt i t i o n s o f , 8 , 9 , 1 9 0, VIII
o la n d
A , 3 01 , 3 1 2, 279
o l es in Au stri a , 5 3 , 1 02 , 1 23 , 1 27,
1 29 , 2 6 7 , 3 1 2, 3 4 5
ru ss1a , 24 , II D , 8 0, 1 5 8
o l es in
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