Land & Water 
March 14, 1918 
in their order, Finland. Esthonia, Livonia, Coiirland, an 
Artificial Lithuania inland, Poland, the new artificial State ot 
Ukrain ■ and Rumania. If Courland be annexed (witli a 
part of what is the Province of Kovno) it leaves seven new 
SUtes; if the annexation push up to the Baltic shore 
to the Gulf of Finland, it leaves five. 
Of these new States, that of Finland will hardly form part 
of the new empire which Prussia is building up. and hopes 
to render permanent. Its j. 000.000 inhabitants— the directing 
classes of which are Swedish in origin— will fall rather to the 
Scandinavian group. That group will, of course, if Prussia 
emerged from this war undefe;ited, fall into the orbit of 
Pru.s.sia. Prussia will hold the gates of its trade and will 
command its seas, but there will certainly be no attempt to 
act on Finland directly. 
Finland has always been quite a separate national group 
within the boundaries of the old Russian Government ; but 
Its independence, now assured by the action of German 
igents in Petrograd. and by the collapse of the Russian 
State, has certain new consequences which are of importance. 
The first of these is the destruction of the old position of 
Petrograd itself. With a German province — or, at the best, 
a German State— of Esthonia holding all the south of the 
Gulf of Finland, and the new Finnish independent State 
holding the northern shore, Petrograd can only hi reached 
bv sea at the mercy of foreigners. It is, on a smaller scale, 
a reproduction of what -Germany has already produced in 
the Dardanelles and the entry to the Baltic. And we must 
remember that the mass of Finnish population is on the 
s<9Uthern edge commanding the approach to Petrograd. 
There is another point of considerable importance in 
connection with Finland. During the war, and with the 
help of the Allies, the Russian Government constructed what 
ought to have been constructed long ago— a railway to open 
water, which was then under Russian control. This railway 
runs from the capital, up along the western shore of the 
White Sea, to the Bay of Kola, upon the Arctic Ocean, a 
deep, completely sheltered, and excellent harbour, a fjord, 
more sheltered even than most of the Norwegian fjords, and 
never impassable through ice. This northern railway, pro- 
duced under the pressure of the war, was the first communica- 
tion Petrograd had with the ocean all the year rourft. Now, 
no part of this line passes throughjFinland proper. But it 
w>ll be It the mercy of any one who can use Finland. It 
runs up, flanking the Finnish border all the way — and, 
indeed, in the present condition of Russian society, there is 
no reason why the State of Finland should not add to its 
rerntories whatever it liked of the great uninhabited waste 
tfiat borders the White Sea. ^ 
To the south of the Gulf of Finland, you have first the 
i^roup of three territories bordering upon the Baltic — 
Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland. The latter would shed, 
if It were organised as a German or quasi-German territory. 
Its long easterly tongue which contains Dvinsk, but would 
take in all the western part of the province of jKovno, and 
' would very probably include the town of Riga, which junder 
Russian rule counted as part of Livonia The new Courland 
might also annex the territory of Sualki to the south, though 
tnis had counted as a portion of Courland for a jvery long 
time past. Courland so organised, with Riga as its chief 
town, would, especially in the neighbourhood of the sea 
and on the banks of the main rivers, be dominated by men 
at German tongue who are the merchants and thejprincipal 
landlords in most parts. 
Esthonia, at the other or northern end of the Baltic group, 
includes — or probably would include — the northern portion 
of what was till recently the province of Livonia, including 
tlie town of Dorpad, and the great naval base of tReval. 
Here again in the wealthier minority German influences 
iiready dominate, and much of the non-German speaking 
oopulation is attachable to the new svstem through its 
religion, which is in the main Protestant. There comes in 
between the district of Livonia, the southern [part of the 
orovince of that name, of which the chief town |is Walk ; 
the majority of this district is Catholic, but there would be 
both a Protestant and a certain Orthodox Greek minority. 
Whether these three Baltic districts would be annexed by 
Germany or given partial or entire autonomy we do not 
know, but the German Press is already speaking of them as 
tttough they were virtually German by possession. 
Next to the south, we have the district which is in the 
mam to be regarded as the future Germanised Kingdom of 
Poland. It consists in the Russian portion of the Polish 
kingdom less the northern territory, of which Sualki is the 
chief town, and less the province of Cholm, which, after the 
shuffling ambiguities of the last few weeks, it is still probably 
the enemy's intention to hand over to Ukraine in order at 
once to diminish the remnant of Poland, and create a cause 
of friction between that State and its eastern neighbours. 
Poland, thus reduced, ,is in population about half, and in 
territory less than half, the true Poland of history and 
national position. Beyond this diminution of its hereditary 
enemy (to whom it owes also its title to a. kingdom) Prussia 
will not go. There is a portion of the German Press which 
is crying out for further annexation, but it will not be 
listened to because the direct government of so considerable 
a body of men, intellectually their superiors and always in 
active opposition, would be exceedingly dangerous. And 
because- all the economic and political results desired can be 
obtained either by this remnant of Poland autonomous with 
a German house ruling in Warsaw, or by attaching it to some 
tripartite arrangement in a new Hapsburg Empire. 
Prussianised Rumania 
In the south, the plan with regard to Rumania will be 
seen to be this. Transylvania and its three million Rumanians 
under Magyar rule to remain where they are — part of the 
universal policy of division which we see everywhere in this 
scheme. But Bessarabia (with about half that number), 
in the main Rumanian, to be added to Rumania, and the 
whole of the country to be established under a new dynasty 
with Prussian sympathies. The Dobrudja to be handed 
over to Bulgaria ; but one would imagine that the mouths 
of the Danube — or, at any rate, one issue to the Black Sea — 
would be left in Rumanian hands, because Rumania thus 
constituted would be virtually subject to Prussia, whereas 
Bulgaria, though within the general influence of the new 
great State, would be less easy to control directly. 
There remain the two unknown quantities of inland 
Lithuania, including a great mass of the White Russian 
population and the new artificial State of Ukraine. These 
two will be in mere acreage the largest of the new territories, 
and in population Ukraine will be much the largest — from 
30 to 35 million souls. It will contain something like half 
of all the new States together, including Rumania (which 
will count about 9 to 9I millions). What we do not know is 
the eastern boundary within wliich Prussia will decide to 
contain these two new satellites of hers — Lithuania and the 
Ukraine. 
It has been suggested that inland Lithuania— a highly 
artificial State — would include the northern part of the 
province of Minsk, with Minsk itself, the northern part of 
Grodno, with that town and Bialystok as chief centres, all 
Vilna, the eastern part of Kovno, the eastern tongue of 
Courland Province, of which I have spoken, and even Vitebsk 
and Mohilev. In other words, everything north of the 
Pripet Marshes, which region may indifferently fall to the 
northern State of Ukraine. It is true that this will be a 
big, unwieldy, not homogeneous, hotch-potch sort of a 
State — Catholic and Orthodox in religion, partly Polish, 
Jewish, White Russian, and Lithuanian in race. But it 
would not be very thickly {populated, it would be only about 
half as thickly populated as Poland (square mile for square 
mile), it would not entrench upon the territory of Great 
Russia proper, it would give rise to friction against Poland, 
especially in Grodno and Vilna. There is, from the German 
point of view, a good deal to be said for creating such an 
artificial lump. 
Lastly, from south of the Pripet Marshes to the Black Sea 
and from the artificial frontier drawn near Cholm to the 
boundaries of the Cossacks of the Don, you have the new 
artificial State which the enemy has christened archaically 
"the Ukraine." It is possible or probable that the Crimea 
and its hinterland north of the isthmus— in other words, the 
Taurida Province— would not be included, but would form 
some small government of its own— at least, that is the 
suggestion that has been made in enemy countries, on what 
foundation I do not know. 
It is not fully realised yet what a vast estate it is that 
Germany has thus carved for herself for exploitation by her 
capital and government, by her methods, upon the marches 
of Russia. When this estate has been estabhshed as a 
number of nominally independent little nations, with the 
only important and solid national group, that of Poland, 
diminished and hemmed in (reduced, say, to 11 milUons out 
of 20, and entirely encircled from the sea), it will consist of 
at least eight units, which may well be set up as eight States ; 
but which, at any rate, the Germans do not intend to set up 
m much less than five States, all of them, except Poland, 
highly artificial. These, as we have seen, are Courland, 
Liv»nia, Esthonia, an artificial inland Lithuania, the 
so-called "Ukraine," Rumania, with the probable addition 
of Bessarabia, and the remains of Poland. Allowing the 
Ukraine, the boundaries of which on the east remain uncer- 
tain, a margin of five million between maximum and minimum 
