May 1 6, 191 8 
Land & Water 
erectj'a real Kingdom of Bohemia with safeguards for the 
German belt upon the North and East. One could imagine 
the old Margravate of Moravia, the old Duchy of Carniola, 
and the old Kingdom of Croatia treated in the same fashion. 
The Poles, already very powerful in the Empire, might have 
had a still larger measure of freedom : a freer Poland 
would actually have increased the power of the Crown over 
the Orthodox elements in Galicia. There would have been a 
difficulty with the Magyars because the Magyars thought it 
more natural to rule directly over Serbs and Rumanians, 
whom they regarded as inferiors ; but a Federal system was 
in the air, and would soon have arrived. 
Both the Hohenzollerns in the North ajid the Hapsburgs 
in the South were moving towards, or had established, a 
system marked by three clear characteristics. First: The 
maintenance of a supremacy — particularly in the case of 
Prussia. Secondly, the basing of that supremacy upon 
Federalism. Thirdly, very marked degrees in the extent of 
that Federalism ; from the ruthless crushing of the Prussian 
Pelish Provinces, through the nominally Imperial rights of 
Alsace-Lorraine, to the very maximum of autonomy such as 
you found in Bavaria or in Hamburg. 
• This system had for its essential motive the preservation 
of two d3masties — the Hohenzollem and the House of 
Hapsburg-Lorraine. Not only its Federal quality, but the 
calculated degrees in autonomy at once gave this system 
elasticity and permitted of confusion in national ideals — 
and to confuse such ideals is the chief moral weapon of those 
who would destroy them. 
One must not, of course, regard the process mechanically. 
It was largely unconscious, largely imposed by necessity, 
largely marred by stupidity. It was stupidity, for instance, 
that forbade any open admission of the Polish claims and 
that compelled the Government of Prussia to alternatives 
of futile repression and secret accommodation. For the 
popular German passion for bullying the Slav was too 
strong for the statesmen to override. It was necessity 
which produced the position of Hamburg or of Bavaria. 
But, allowing for every modification, there did run through 
the pohcy both of Vienna and of Berlin, especially in the 
later nineteenth century, this growing conception that 
Federalism would be their saving and their aggrandisement. 
Single Direction 
To this idea the present situation of the war has given two 
new features : First, a vast extension ; secondly, a single 
centre instead of a double one. It is Prussia alone which 
now directs the whole movement^indeed, the last diplo- 
matic lever upon which the West can still work is the fact 
that a Prussian victory would now mean the subjection 
of the House of Hapsburg. 
The new extension is even more remarkable than the new 
imity. Before the war, you could not say that the two 
Central Empires had extended to an orbit outside their strict 
fiontiers. The smaller States around them were mostly in- 
different or hostile to the Central Powers. But it is clearly 
the intention of the Prussians to-day to create a number of 
free but attached weak States a'hd, as in the case of the for- 
mer domestic FederaUsm, to distinguish between varying 
degrees in their liberty. The Turkish Empire shall be main- 
tained and supported. The Bulgarian shall be no more bound 
than a well-treated ally — subject only to providing a free 
passage to the East. The Finns shall be reorganised, but 
independent ; the Poles cut down to a fragment, but recog- 
nised. And in this Rumanian Treaty you have, perhaps, the 
most characteristic mark of all. 
Observe these points : First, a monarchy — and a monarchy 
of German origin — is maintained. Such elements in the 
constitution as might ultimately have threatened the 
monarchy, or might make it too national, are eliminated. 
But the nation is left a nation ; it is, so far, quite independent 
of military service. Here you have a sort of half-way house 
between the position of (say) Bulgaria in the system and 
the position of (say) Courland — which last will presumably 
be absorbed as a purely German Federal State. 
But it should be clearly appreciated that this sparing of 
Rumania, this deliberate withholding from the apparently 
obvious Prussian pohcy of changing the dynasty and of 
putting a more sympathetic branch of the Hohenzollerns 
upon the throne, is but a mark of a further intention. That 
intention is to help where they are new, to maintain where 
they are old, to protect where protection m.^y be necessarJ^ 
and in aU cases to draw within the general orbit of Prussian 
policy, a ring of smaller States west, north, and east. There 
is difficulty in setthng Lithuania, there is still greater diffi- 
culty in forming an artificial State called "the Ukraine.' 
but the rest is going well. 
After her victory, -Prussia certainly expects a perfectly 
independent Sweden and Denmark, and Holland to be 
always friendly to her interests. As for Belgium, she would 
restore it to a similar complete independence ; but she 
would expect and obtain support for the Flemish tongue to 
the gradual decline of the French, and every economic 
facility for the use of the Scheldt — a thing that does not 
involve one word of recognised political inferiority. Nothing 
could possibly be more to the advantage of tliis new system 
than a Switzerland as free as air — but one in which the 
German-speaking cantons should remember the victory of 
their kindred, while the minority of French and Italian 
speech should remember the defeat of theirs. 
We have before us, then, not only the erection of a great 
new State, but the erection of one bearing a special type — 
a type novel for us and a type which would give immense 
and permanent power to those who direct it. It will be a 
State federal in its nucleus, surrounded by lesser quasi- 
independent nations, with various degrees of freedom, and 
bounding these again small States perfectly independent, 
but awed into political and economic alliance or friendliness. 
The whole will really be subject to one control. That control 
will come from one centre in Berlin ; and that centre is the 
thing which we are fighting. 
In the presence of such a fact all talk of German failure in 
the West, coupled with German success in the East, is non- 
sense. Success in the East is the enemy's object for the 
whole war. 
If Germany were to consent to-morrow to restore Alsace- 
Lorraine, to accept the complete independence of Belgium, 
to withdraw (of course) from all occupied territory, to cede 
the Trentino, and even to repair at her own charges — or, 
rather, those of the great New Central State which she now 
controls — the destruction she has wrought, she would have 
won the war. 
It is a mere tiresome platitude to repeat that this war is 
not like any other war : That we are fighting for the salva- 
tion of what used to be called Europe and for all that we mean 
in the West^by the word "civilisation." The thing is so 
obvious that those who do not recognise it — those who still 
talk in terms of the old struggles of professional armies and 
dynasties, accommodated by partial treaties, and resulting 
in a peace of mutual accommodations— are no longer listened 
to at all. 
What is not a platitude and what needs perpetual insist- 
ence pntil it shall be as universally recognised and become a 
commonplace in its turn, is the truth that the mark of 
victory one way or the other is the power of Prussia to use 
what is now her decisive Eastern victory. 
If her armies and those of her Allies are defeated, as she 
has defeated the armies against her upon the East, we shall 
at once and essentially destroy all this Prussian dream of a 
Central European State. We shall have behind us for 
doing so the most intense national forces ; we shall be the 
liberators of races and territories which still desire not the 
mercy of a conqueror, but a revenge against him. We shall 
destroy fully the present prestige upon which alone -the 
Prussian scheme depends. There will not even remain the 
artificial modern structure of a German Empire; and to 
whatever the Scandinavian States or the Netherland States, 
or the Balkan States, or what we hope wiU be a complete 
and resurrected Poland, look as the centre of strength in 
Europe, it will not be to Berlin. 
The issue of the world lies upon the West and, for the 
moment, upon that little stretch upon the map between the 
rivers Scarpe and Oise, where three million men are drawn 
up facing each other. " Anyone who thinks that the East is 
settled before that battle is settled is unfit to discuss the 
destinies of his own country, let alone of Europe. 
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