It was the famous phrase—Central Europe—Mittel-Europa—which made plain the consequences of this project, a project opposed to the death by the Slavs and the Western Powers, and which could be only achieved after their complete subjugation.
The political situation of Central Europe was singularly favourable to the new Pan-German plan. As I have already stated the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was in full process of disintegration. The Germans in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary only maintained their power under the most precarious conditions and by the most tyrannical proceedings. The Germans were alarmed by the progress made by the Czechs, the Yugo-Slavs, and the Poles; the Magyars were beginning to feel their impotency in face of the growing Yugo-Slav and Czecho-Slovak national movement, and feared the increasing power of Russia. In Bulgaria, German intrigues stirred up old grudges against the Serbs. In Turkey, the Young Turks, who only maintained their power with the help of the Germans, counted on them to resist the Russian pretensions to Constantinople and to check all the English and Italian claims and demands, which would cause the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
Lastly, the immensity of Russian territory and the ever-increasing size of the Russian population
