LAND & WATER 
January 17, 1918 
nf Central Europe. Wietlier it shall offer virtual unification 
under eiuniy iiiHuence, or form in the future :i bcxly of coni- 
jx^ting and independent nations,, is the present great debate 
of the world. From north to south the boundaries are, upon 
ihe north, of course, the Baltic, save for one debatable but 
\ery narrow belt near the Kiel Canal, for which confiictiug 
arguments will claim Danish or Gennan allegiance.* 
Upon the south the frontiers are, up to tlie Adriatic, verj- 
nearly those of tlie .\ustrian and German Empires as they were 
before tlie war, excluding certain Italian-speaking and feeling 
districts, such as the 'frentino and a portion of the Austrian 
coast, while through the Balkans a vaguer division would run, 
always excluding historic tireece, which could hardly be re- 
garded as ever likely to fall into the direct system of a Central 
European State, though it would, of course, like many out- 
Iving nations, be within its orbit should such a State be 
established. But the Narrows between Asia and Europe 
(whicli command the Black Sea and are also the doorway 
to the East) certainly fall within our definition, as does the 
^^ hole of the Black Sea Coast, at least to Odessa. 
It will be observed that in such a chvision there has Ueen 
excludod the Swiss-German cantons in spite of their strong 
German feeling. It is right to make this distinction bccaits(; 
the national tradition of the Swiss outweighs any such racial 
attachment, and because no Central European policy would 
be so foolish as to challenge the Swiss tradition, useful as a 
neutral force, usel<>ss to them in any other capacity. Nor is 
any mention made of the Netherlands or of the Scandinavian 
])foples, because witii a Central European State establislied, 
these outliers would necessarily fall under the orders and 
influence of that State, while its authors would have no 
Advantage in attempting a more direct rule. 
So defined, the great new State of which we speak consists 
?ssentially of two political factors. First, upon the west, the 
various German-speaking peoples united for the moment at 
least in a common object and drilled bv Prussia : secondly, 
ujwn the east, an extraordinary mosaic of race, language and 
rrligion ; Slavonic and Turanian and Jewish ; Orthodox, 
* atholic and Protestant ; showing isolated districts of German 
M'i''h among Slavs, Magyars, Roumanians or Letts; other 
dilated districts of Slav or others amid German surroundings ; 
chstinctions social and not geographical, as between the Gemian 
land-owners of the Baltic coast and their serfs ; religious but 
not racial, as between the Roumanian Orthodox and the 
lioumanian Uniates ; passionate divergences of race not 
tlefinable geograpltically, as between the Jews and the Poles; 
and, adding to the whole confusion, differences closely inter- 
twining of culture, of tradition and of expectations for the 
future. 
How are we to arrive at any general view of something so 
apparently chaotic ? We shall be principally helped to such 
a general view — as will appear later in this series of articles — 
by a general historical outline which explains the map in its 
\ariou? forms. But before reaching tliis there are certain 
lomis of graphical presentations which, combined, will give 
us our first elements in the matter, and for this Imust ask my 
reader to look at the annexed map. 
Geography of tlie New State 
In the first place, .we see first in this map the geographica 
area with which we have to deal. It is, roughly speaking, 
r.ooo miles from east to west, and 600 to 700 miles from north 
to south, the latter dimension increasing as we go eastward 
liom less than 400 miles as the crow flies upon the west to 
about 900 miles upon the cast. 
We can also see in this map the prime distinction between 
the compact German-speaking body, attached to German 
nationality, and tlie vast confused region wliich lies to the east 
of that body. The former is the itiaster in the New State, the 
latter tlie servant. The former, under Prussia, controls, 
informs and will exploit the latter ; and the first step in the 
understanding ofjthis is to seize the distribiition of popiilaiion. 
This element in the understanding of anv politico-geo- 
graphical matter affecting hiunan affairs— density of popula- 
1 ion— is very ill done in most motlem studv. It is ill done 
mainly because ordinary- maps teach us tb think in mere 
(ircas—wnihowt visualising the prest-nce and activity of those 
human beings which compose the :nation. It is also ill-done 
jmrtly because it is novel in conception, partly because modem 
conditions make it very difficult t»j do, paftlv because it is 
justly suspect. Industrialism has created 'the enormous 
towns of our time, yet we know thai; those towns do not " pull 
their weight " in tlie body politic, because they have no cor- 
]>orate unity or tradition. ' Again, rindustrialism has crowded 
whole districts with an uprooted population, partly vaga- 
l>ond, always nii.x;ed and unfortunate, which number for 
* A Germanrf(V(/fd will be loimd well, north of that line, but German 
*Ilci;iaucc IS ilisputeU. 
number cannot be weighed f.gainst the more sparsely inhabited 
countrysides. -Vgaiii, t\\-o districts equally thickly inhabited 
will depend for their effect in national history upon many 
factors other than numbers. Nevertheless, some way of 
presenting the density of population to the eye is essential 
before we c^n understand the meaning of a mere geographical 
area and is the first thing to be attempted. 
In the case of this body of " Central Europe," that .scheme, 
though very compUcated, has a certain principle of unity which 
we can retain in our further study. If we mark off the dis- 
tricts with more than 100 souls to the square kilometre (say, 
a family to ten acres — which means a dense modem popula- 
tion taking town and country together) ; if we eliminate, for 
the sake of clearness, many separate " islands " of dense 
jjopulation, marking only the great towns of over half a 
million inhabitants, we obtain the fairly obvious " L " of 
dense population apparent on the map. There is one long belt 
of dense population running from west to cast and corre- 
sponding to the higher courses of the northern rivers. There 
is another short one running fropi north to south and corre- 
sponding exactly to the opportunities of mining communication 
and agriculture afforded by the Rhine valley. 
Mastery and Density 
Now when we consider on this sketcji Map (i) the total 
area of Central Europe. (2) The boundaries of the Gennari 
national group ; and (3) The map of population, we are at 
once aware of the following phenominon : The leeighl of 
numbers lien to ike ii'esl and belongs to the German-speaking 
belt -which under Prussia proposes to be the master of the whole. 
In other words, here, as in so many other cases of historical 
development, especially when that development has been 
false and procl^tctive of ill, agglomeration of population tells. 
We shall see later on in these articles the curious point that 
the district from which has sprang and wherein still prin- 
cipally resides the Prussian spirit that informs the whole, is 
a district ill-populated, for its size the least populated of all. 
The reader will also note, when he compares upon the 
sketch map the boundaries of the German area and the 
poHtical boundaries of the German and Austro-Hungarian 
Empires, the way in whic.h the preponderance of population 
lies, not only mainly within the German belt, but also almost 
entirely within the old political boundaries of the two Central 
Empires. In other words, the mass of the population which 
will dominate the new State is German to begin witJi, and a 
still greater proportion of it has been hitherto included within 
tlie political boundaries of the (German and Austro-Hungarian 
F'mpires, and has therefore been trained to obedience within 
those systems ; it has inherited their methods of government 
and is docile to their expansion. 
We have here an element very favourable to the develop- 
ment of the new State should the dominating position of 
Prussia remain undisturbed. There will be a natural tendency 
■for the more densely populated areas to approach, to occupy, 
and to develop the less densely populated : a process which 
takes place in every development of a hinterland. F'or there 
is a certain sense, economic and even political, in wliich 
countries to the east of the Central l-lmpires may be regarded 
as the hinterlands of those Powers. They themselves certauily 
regard this eastern belt in that light. In the German Uni- 
versities the thing is taken for granted. So it is in the political 
scheme of Berlin. 
Our first conclusion, then, with regard to this new great 
State now arising in Europe and challenging the West, is that 
so far as mere distribution of population is concerned, the 
weight of the German group which proposes to master the 
rest under the tuition of Prussia is naturally preponderant 
and should, left to itself, naturally control the whole. 
Here, as in other matters which will be touched upon in 
these articles, we see in what lies the reason of the Prussian 
ambition, and why it has seemed to the statesmen of Prussia 
an almost fatal necessity of the future in their favour, while we 
in the West were hardly thinking of the matter at all, but were 
still talking in terms of political arrangements which before 
the war were unstable and in the course of the war have dis- 
appeared. Here, as in other aspects of the same .theme, we 
can understand why all talk of an independent this or an 
independent that in the Eastern countries beyond t he German 
belt, all talk of "self-determination" or "government by 
consent of the governed," means nothing in practice unless the 
military power of Prussia be overset. Leave it remaining 
even with its prestige alone ; leave it undefeated even if it 
consents to a peace with nominal autonomy for sundry groups 
to the east of the Germans, and those groups will inevitably 
lall under the general hegemony of the Prussianised German. 
They will be provinces within his authority and they will 
permanently constitute together with the master-State 
over them that new State of Central Europe, the existence 
and menace of which is the theme of these articles. So much 
