THE PANGERMAN PEACE PLOT
country how absolutely identical our interests are with those of Serbia, Greece, and Roumania, and how impossible it is to reconcile Bulgarian dreams of hegemony with a Europe reconstructed upon national and democratic foundations. "The Eastern Question which is now raised in Europe is no longer the old orthodox question, but a Prussianised Eastern Question, coloured in all its aspects by the present and future ambitions of the Hohenzollerns. In the same way the question of modern Austria is no longer the old Austrian question, which consisted in the traditional struggle of the Habsburgs with their various nationalities." As M. Chéradame aptly points out, the Allies entered the war without a true perception of the inner meaning of the struggle. The Russians were at first chiefly concerned in saving Serbia from annihilation; the Italians hoped to limit their war to a conflict with the House of Habsburg; the French were absorbed in the problem of the lost provinces; while the British, indignant at the treatment of Belgium and convinced that they could not in their own interests allow France to be crushed, "had not the slightest notion that British interests would be so completely threatened as they have been in Central Europe, in Turkey, in Egypt, and in India." To-day there is a real danger that, as the struggle lengthens and its appalling sacrifices are brought home to every household, many people may be disposed to fall into the trap of the so-called "Drawn Game" without understanding "what would be concealed behind this apparent and partial German capitulation." M. Chéradame adduces many arguments to show that Germany, now that she is definitely baulked of the swift triumph which she had promised herself in the summer of 1914, would find it infinitely worth her while to evacuate Belgium, France, Luxemburg and Poland, to restore Alsace-Lorraine, and even to abandon the left bank of the Rhine, if in return she might maintain "her preponderant influence, direct or indirect, over Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey." Nine-tenths of the Pangerman plan have already been achieved, and it ought therefore to be obvious even to those of the most limited intelligence, that the persistent peace manœuvres of Germany are due not to any change of heart on the part of Emperor or people, but to a clear perception of the fact that they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by a prolongation of
281
