LAND 6? WATER 
November 28, 1918 
The Recovery of Europe: By Hilaire Belloc 
II. 
WHAT we liave to prevent, if we are to save 
ourselves, is the re-formation of that smoulder- 
ing possibility, the Central European State. 
For if it once take form, no matter under 
what disguise, particularly if the disguise 
is unconscious, no matter vnider what name, whether it is 
called Republican or Imperial, co-equally federal, or rallied 
round one centre — ^the older Europe is insecure. The highly 
organised, highly differentiated nations of the west, par- 
ticularly Great Britain and France and the new Italy, will 
stand separate before such a menace- — and an organism of 
this kind, no matter how it might arise, would have the East 
in its power. ^'i 
That we may understand the problem, let us try to put 
fairly to ourselves the attitude of those who but recently 
tried to bring such a State into being, under the direct 
hegemony of Prussia. 
Men talk sometimes as though the ambitions of these 
men liad been narrow, and purely mechanical ; as though 
Prussia were an intriguer quite indifferent to the fate of every 
other German State (for she was the least German of all), and 
as though her dependents and allies were attached merely 
by force or fraud to that great mass which she led. 
That is an imperfect view, and in particular cases it is a 
completely false view. The point of Prussia was that her 
discipline, crude though it was, and quite uncreative, could 
promise to most of the German nations organised under 
a Prussian Presidency prosperity and strength ; and that 
Prussia could offer as proof of such a claim the great vic- 
tories of a generation ago. Such a German Confederation 
being established, it achieved a natural preponderance over 
the partly German imperial system of the south, Austria, 
and through this union threatened all the Slav world, and 
impressed or controlled in part the nearer East. 
Now such a system, though Prussia was immensely valuable 
to it, was not necessarily, in theory at least, dependent 
upon the power or even the existence of Prussia. 
The men who conceived a vast central European State, 
with an inevitable influence extending eastward, though 
Prussia was the backbone of their system, had a more general 
theory in mind. What they said to themselves (and still 
say to themselves) would remain true in their minds though 
the Prussian system should fail to rise from its ruins, and 
though the very region itself east of the Elbe should be 
blotted out. 
VVliat they said to themselves was something like this : 
" The accidents of history have made of all Central Europe 
east of the German peoples such a welter and puzzle of con- 
flicting languages, religions, races and national traditions, 
that no permanent solution is possible save large impartial 
Empires ruling the distracted welter^ — and best of all 
one large empire, federal in nature, wherein the German, 
especially under a Prussian discipline, will naturally 
direct, but into which we must — rather against the grain 
— admit the Magyar. The Magyar is an obstacle 
because he is highly national, clearly defined, and jealous 
of his independence. The other much larger nation, still 
more clearly defined, and still more attached to national 
freedom, is Poland. But Poland we dismembered in the 
moment of her weakness. The Magyars we failed to subdue ; 
for we attempted it too late. We accept the Magyars, then, 
as a sort of junior partner with subject peoples of their own 
to coerce, and we solve the general problem by this idea 
of a Federal Empire which will control the centre of Europe. 
Such a unity is capable of vast economic expansion as well 
as of military power ; for it can organise the parts of one 
great whole and throw its combined effect on section after 
section of industry in succession : it has a " mobile economic 
reserve' superior by far to that of any other European unit. 
Further it will control the East, for it holds the approaches 
to the East, and merges racially and culturally with the East 
through the Balkans. Side by side with this economic set- 
tlement goes the political settlement which alone makes 
it possible. This great central State in Europe is the natural 
and inevitable form which, under modern conditions, all 
that vast territory will take, whether it be called a Federation 
of Sovereigns, or of republics, or of both ; an Empire with 
an elected or an hereditary head, or a mere group of States 
with not even a nominal chief or President, the thing will 
of necessity exist." 
Such is the conception still firmly planted in ever}' North 
German head. It has not suffered defeat. It is taken for 
granted, as wo take the future of our colonial sjstem for 
granted. 
A Central European State will arise, they think, and be 
master. 
Well, that is exactly what we have to prevent. What may 
prevent it we must next inquire. 
What can prevent, and what alone can prevent the resur- 
rection of this menace, is a combination of three things, 
lacking any one of which the fruits of the war are lost. 
The first is the true and full restoration of the nationalities, 
wherein the test is Poland, and the test of that test is Danzig. 
The second is a common control of the two gates which 
geographically close the Baltic and the Black Sea. 
The third is the constitution of such a common control by 
those western nations which bled, and almost died, in defence 
of Europe and the world against tlie barbaric conception of the 
Central State. 
Each of these three is essential to the result. Be certain 
that if we fail in any one, the rest are lost. 
If in the first of these there is weakness, treason, or ignor- 
ance, we certainly fail altogether. It is the keystone, all 
the more the keystone because it is new to the West. 
Tf the second is compromised by quarrelling or misappre- 
hension, the first is a bit of waste paper ; for if you have not 
certain access to the Baltic and the Black Sea, if you leave 
these in particular hands, then the West gives up all voice in 
the East. Surely the war has taught us that ! 
GUARDIANS OF THE EAST 
The third point is the most difficult to erect, and to main- 
tain. It is as essential as the other two. Lacking it, we 
shall never achieve our end. It is the Western Powers which 
must, in the nature of things, be the warrantors for and the 
guardians of the newly freed nations of the East and of the 
international waterways to the Black Sea and the Baltic, 
because that against which they are ranged has exactly 
contrary interests. Those who desire to produce — no matter 
in what form — a great central State in Europe desire, by 
definition, the control of the Baltic and the Black Sea, and 
the weakening and division of the Eastern nationalities. 
Let us take these three necessities of the situation and 
examine them more closely. 
We must set up the new nationalities. A treaty of peace 
which did not impose this piece of justice upon the reluctant 
Germans and Magyars would be a direct negation of all we 
have said, and, speaking for the general public at least, 
sincerely said during the war. But there will be more 
resistance, open and secret, to such a policy than most people 
are yet aware of. 
You have these factors of resistance : 
First, the inertia of Western opinion on the matter. It is 
indeed natural and explicable, but may none the less be 
fatal. Five years ago no one in the West, beyond a handful 
of experts, knew or cared about the national traditions of 
those subject to the Germans and Magvars. How many 
educated men of one's acquaintance could have drawn eveii 
approximately on the map the Western boundaries of a free 
Rumanian State ? How man\' could define the belt of Serbian 
population north of the Danube ? One has only to ask such a 
question about one's own ignorance to appreciate how little 
we knew. The war has largely changed this state of affairs, 
but it remains true that the problems involved are distant 
and unfamihar. Though their solution is vital to us, we 
cannot easily think of them as immediate; and that is a 
very dangerous mood to be in. It is the common mood 
of a man who neglects the approach of a mortal disease 
because he has had no experience of it and sees no external 
sign of it near him. 
Next, we have the rooted, secular conviction of ever^^ 
German and every Magyar that he is in some way the natural 
superior^of the Slav and the Rumanian. That is a much 
more foirnidable obstacle than the policy of a Government. 
The persecution of the Poles by the Germans, that of the 
Serbians and of the Rumanians by the Magyars, was not a 
whim of autocracy : it was a profoundly national act with 
centuries of national feeling and action behind it. This war 
has confirmed the feeling very stronglv. We must remember 
