January ;i . i mi N 
LAND & WATER 
bewildeiiiig; (Jivtrbily hab trouliers quite independent of the 
religious map, and the full chaiacter of the mosaic — the 
txtraordinary extent to which it is split up — can hardly be 
understood save by the super-imposition of the one map upon 
the other. It may, however, be attempted in words, and the 
following sentences will explain what I mean. 
A Government desiring to ha\'e information upon some in- 
dividuals during this war, individuals who may have shown 
activity on one side or the other in this belt, would receive 
descriptions something after this fashion : 
" He is a Mas\ar land-owner but Protestant." "He is a 
Catholic Magyar land-owner." " He is a Bosnian Mahomme- 
dan from Bihac." " He is a German Lutheran from the 
Seven Towns in Transylvania." " He is a Roumanian- 
speaking Uniate from a village just outside one of the German 
towns in Transylvania." "He is a Galician-Uniate from 
Lemberg, but worked with the Orthodox Priests during tlie 
Russian invasion." " He is a German-speaking Jew from 
Lemberg." " He is a German-speaking Jew from Odessa, but 
his sympathies are with the Ukraine." " He is a German- 
speaking citizen of the Empire, with a farm a few miles out of 
Landsburg on the Warthe, but he is a Catholic and Polish in 
sympathy." " He is a Polish Nationalist speaking the Polish 
Masurian dialect and though Lutheran strongly anti-Prussian. " 
" He is a German merchant from Riga, Lutheran in religion, 
but tiTisted by the Russian authorities." " He is a Lithuanian 
man estabUshed in Riga, Catholic in religion and with Polish 
svmpathies." " Hcvhas worked for the so-called Jugo-Slav 
cause, but is strongly Catholic in religion " — and so forth. 
The double network of language and creed produces 
this bewildering confusion. It is remarkable, and character- 
istic enough of such movements that the adherents of par- 
ticular causes seek to eliminate one or other of these factors 
of complexity for the purpose of maintaining their theories. For 
example, a German Nationalist will tell you of a small district 
near the Polish town of Thorn, that it is German, because it is 
derman speaking ; the same man will tell you that a Masurian 
farmer cannot really be called Polish because he is Lutheran. 
But the Polish patriot will conversely test the man in Thorn 
by his rehgion and the man in the Masurian Lakes by his 
language and arrive at exactly opposite conclusions. 
A Triple Problem 
To the impartial observer the problem presented is a triple 
one of language, of race (which does not perfectly fbllow 
language), and of religion, which often cuts clean across both. 
Supposing such an observer were asked to suggest what 
national groups could be formed out of such a welter, he 
would, I think, reply somewhat thus : 
" There is first of all and most important a perfectly clear 
homogeneous Catholic Poland : Polish speaking, Polish in race, 
Polish in conscious patriotism. It reaches to the sea ; its 
great port there, Dantzic, has been Germanised in speech and 
largely in race, but is politically necessary to the Polish 
State if that State is to exist at all. This Pohsh State 
would have fringes rov^nd it of mixed language and of mixed 
religion, but tiiat is absolutely inevitable in Eastern Europe 
however you draw your boundaries. . 
" There is a Bohemian State which could only exist if a 
strong Polish State were already erected, and into which it 
would be unwise to admit too large a proportion of the German 
belt in the mountains. 
" There is a Magyar State, aristocratic in character and 
intensely national. It can certainly be recognised and can 
form a homogeneous body, for it has been a dominant State 
up to this war. But it must give up its claim and desire to rule 
the Sla\ s to the north and to the south, which are now within 
its poUtical boundary and by which it is hated, and the great 
mass of Roumanian speaking people to the east who are not 
in sympathy with it. On the other hand we need not trouble 
ourselves in the future of such a State, with the reUgious 
differences within it or with the considerable German speaking 
Colonies, for Hungary is too united in feeling to be in peril 
from such anomalies. 
"There is a Roumanian State clearly defined by the use of the 
Roumanian language. i)Ut it has three elements of instability, 
which the new Constitution would have to safeguard as best 
it could, i'irst, there is the very mi.xed condition of Bess- 
arabia, with Roumanian and Slav districts interlocked, and 
ivith a mass of German-speaking Jewish population as well. 
Next, there is the division between the Orthodox and the 
Uniate, but there is little danger of this breaking up the State, 
for there is here no great friction. Lastly, there are the very 
considerable islands of Magyar speaking and German sf)eaking 
groups right in the mountain centre of the Roumanian State. 
It is inevitable that the Roumanian State, if it is to exist at 
all, must rule these anomalies as best it can and must be 
wise enough to concede considerable local autonomy. 
"There is a Southern Slav or Serbian State, which doubtless 
could be erected as au independent Nation but ni whicli wc 
nuist be careful to note two elements of danger only ignored 
by enthusiasts ; the first is the presence on its Southern piu t, 
though in one place as far north as the Save, of Mahommedan 
elements, and with this we must couple the probable difficulty 
of defining the Albanian frontier. Next there is a very sharp 
division, not only in religion but in many fundamental habits 
such as the alphabet, with all that it connotes in the daily 
influence of the Press and of literature, between the eastern and 
the western portions, the Orthpdox and the Catholic." 
Such would be, in its very roughest form, the reply of a 
Western observer anxious to erect independent nation- 
alities in the East of Europe and to save them from falling 
into the orbit of Prussia. It is clear at once from the map, 
whether of religion or of language, and from history, that'the 
essential part of such a system, the keystone of it, is a strong 
and independent Poland, and that is why this has been 
insisted upon over and over again in these columns as the 
test of the war. 
Now on the other side the enemy has a very strong case, a 
case so strong that short of his defeat he will undoubtedly 
make good. It is a case so strong in history and in fact that 
an undefeated Prussia cannot but translate it into reality 
infinitely more easily than we can establish, let alone protect, 
the nationaUties just defined. In fact Prussia has already 
actually translated its theory into a realitv ; for since the 
collapse of Russia it has erected this new State under our 
eyes. It already exists. And the Prussian answer, which is 
also that of all academic Germany is somewhat as follows : 
" In contemporary fact and in the light of history it is 
inevitable that these exceedingly complicated conditions 
should be ruled even if only indirectly and in a confederate 
manner by the homogeneous, the wealthier, the more highly 
organised German people to the West : though that with the 
aid of the Magyar State which has f)een organised now for 
many generations as an Imperial power dominating its non- 
Magyar subjects. There might have been a great Slav mass 
stretching uninterruptedly from the Baltic to the Adriatic and 
welded into one homogeneous State, but historically this failed. 
The .\siatic invasion of the Magyars in the Dark Ages cut it 
into two ; the Southern part of it was overrun by the Turks, 
and on the top of that you got the profound cleavage in 
religion ; Poland, Bohemia and the Adriatic Slavs were 
t rained by the Latin Church under a Western culture ; the SlaA s 
to the East of them— wholly cut off at first by the Pagan 
Lithuanians— was trained from Byzantium in the Greek 
culture and rehgion. The whole history of the German 
people has been the history of the gradual extension eastward 
of their language, influence and culture against the Slav. In 
this they have succeeded. Their colonies are strongly planted 
far and wide in Slav territory, and to-day all indiistry, all 
modern energy throughout the whole belt, derives from the 
Germans. Such a state of aftairs coupled with the extreme 
diversity of race and creed and language, the frictions and 
animosities everywhere present between one small group and 
another, render order and development therein impossible 
without imperial control, and that control can notv only be 
German. It is inevitable ; there is simply nothing else 
present in the mass to give it direction, now tliat the strongly 
centralised Orthodox Slav power called Russia, which used to 
be our counter-weight, has disappeared. We admit that there 
is a true Polish State and nationality ; it is the nearest thing 
to a true unit in the whole aiYair. But the maintenance of that 
nationality has proved impossible. We may erect it, if you 
like, into a nominally free State, but it could not stand alone, 
just as it did not stand alone in the past. We may propose 
at the close of the war many varying forms of local autonomy, 
of federation, of nominally independent Kingdoms — what you 
will — but the reality behind it all will be and can only be a 
great Central European State in which the German people shall 
be altogether the seniors and the directors, and that people, 
remember, in its modern form, has been disciplined and 
united by Prussia." 
Such, I think, is the answer that would be given by a 
(ierman at the present moment studying what he would caU 
" objectivity " and careful to avoid extreme claims. 
Wc know, we in the West, that the creation of such a State 
means the domination of all Europe by Prussia : that our 
tradition and civilisation, all that we cherish in sharp antagon- 
ism to Prussia — chivalry, for instance, to quote but one idea 
out of many — ^would not survive such a competition. There 
would be one great European Empire, stretching from the 
Black Sea to the North Sea and from the Baltic to the 
.Adriatic, by whatever name it was called. Without further 
armed aggression it would be the master of all ; especially 
would it be spiritually the master — and that is what counts. 
We have learnt these things very late ; the events which have 
suddenly turned this jx)tential thing into an actual one arc 
events of only the last few months, and one of them alone is 
decisive, the break-up of Russia. But we do know the issue 
