THE NEW EUROPE
other main direction of Pangermanic efforts is that of Constantinople-Aleppo-Hodeida-Cairo. Asia and Africa are the objective.
This project of "Berlin-Bagdad" and "Berlin-Cairo" means, first of all, a close coalition of Prussia-Germany and Austria-Hungary. That has been completed by this war. The coalition of Germany and Austria-Hungary means a united "Central Europe" extending, as a compact mass, from the North Sea and the Baltic to the Adriatic; should this union last, the Balkan States, pressed as they are from the north by Austria-Hungary and from the south by Turkey, could not resist the German effort.
It is obvious that the Austro-Hungarian Question constitutes the centre of gravity of the situation; Austria-Hungary gives 51 million inhabitants to Berlin (more than the most populous of the Western States) and provides the direct "bridge"to Asia and Africa. The war broke out on account of Serbia, who was an obstacle to the advance of Austria as the vanguard of Germany in the East. But her efficiency as a vanguard is endangered by acute unrest among her component nationalities. Her power and her existence are menaced chiefly by the Slav races, though she is also threatened by the Italians and Roumanians. Still, the former are the more dangerous, because Russia and the Balkan Slavs are the natural support of the Slavs of Hungary and Austria, who form the majority of the population.
The question of Austria-Hungary seen in this light is a question of the Slavs — a question of the Southern Slavs (Serbo-Croats and the Slovenes); a question of the Czechs and Slovaks; a question of the Poles and Ruthenes.
The question of Austria-Hungary gains special significance from the fact that she is situated chiefly in that peculiar zone of small nations which divides the west of Europe from the east. Prussia, too, developed in this zone, and the European provinces of Turkey also belong to it. The alliance of Austria-Hungary and Turkey with Prussia-Germany was due to the fact that all these States directed their efforts of conquest against the small nations of this zone. Russia, France, Great Britain became Asiatic powers without subjugating European nations; Prusso-Austrian Pangermanism can attain its Asiatic and African aim only by subjugating and dividing European nations — a striking
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