Page:At the Eleventh Hour by T. G. Masaryk (1916).pdf/34

 Free Poland with independent Bohemia is the direct check against Prussia.

Very often it is proclaimed that the Allies are going to crush Prussian Militarism. How is that to be achieved? If this plan has a practical meaning, it can only consist of the plan to weaken Prussia directly and permanently by liberating the Poles and Czechs, and creating buffer States against Prussian aggression. Free Poland reaching to the Baltic would make East Prussia an enclave, as it was in the past, and Germany would be proportionately weakened.

The significance of Independent Bohemia may be seen from the history and the geographical position of the country. The Bohemians were strong enough to resist the German Drang nach Osten; it was the union with Bohemia which made Austria so strong and powerful. Bismarck observed very rightly, that the possession of Bohemia guarantees the dominion over Europe. The liberation of Bohemia is, for the Allies, as important as the liberation of Poland and the Southern Slavs. In fact these three tasks must form the main object of a sound anti-German policy on the part of the Allies.

Of course Austria-Hungary must be dismembered. It can and must be manifest now that any scheme for the preservation of Austria-Hungary is a direct form of “travail pour le roi de Prusse,” for Austria-Hungary has proved herself, and that not only during the war but before it, to be a mere instrument in the hands of Germany. It is the Pan-German plan to preserve Austria-Hungary.

The liberation and union of the Southern Slavs under the political guidance of Serbia would mean a further stage in the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, and in the organic re-modelling of the Balkans on a racial basis. And surely Serbia has proved her loyalty as an Ally!

Italy’s just national aspirations also demand the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary. Italy would be then the neighbour of Greater Serbia, and would complete the anti-German barrier formed by Poland, Bohemia and Greater Serbia.

Further, the organisation of a Magyar as opposed to a Hungarian State and the liberation of the Hungarian and Austrian Roumanians are necessary political corollaries.

There still remains the question of Constantinople and of European and Asiatic Turkey. Can the Allies come to an understanding on this vexed question?

Germany’s weak spot is in the East, not in the West. By liberating and organising the smaller nations of Central Europe against German aggression Germany will be weakened in the West also, and that is the only way.

Germany’s historical Drang nach Osten must be checked and stopped—that is the task of Russia and her Western Allies. Germany when driven out of the East, will not be strong in the West. It was Bismarck who proclaimed that the Polish East has a greater significance for Germany than Alsace-Lorraine. France, the principal west Continental country, claims a comparatively small rectification of her frontier.

Holland, Denmark, and Belgium are populous countries, countries economically and culturally equal to Germany, and even in certain directions on a higher level; Germany, even if she could subdue these nations, would not find the colonies and “Hinterland” that she longs for, nor would she find a working class which was helpless and at her mercy, as in the East. Moreover, these Western countries, in the event of German aggression would always find France and Britain on their side, just as now Britain has protected Belgium—