Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/226

214 Slavs and Rumanians, but if there be no more profit to be made from farming Slavs in the German behalf, a democratic Hungary will sooner or later adapt herself to the new environment. The Bulgarians fought, let us remember, as allies of the Serbs against the Turks, and the difference between Serb and Bulgar, though bitter for the time being, is a family difference. It is a difference of recent growth, and based largely on rival ecclesiastical organisations of recent foundation. The Bulgarians must not be allowed to exploit their treachery in the Second Balkan War, but if an equitable settlement be dictated by the Allies, both nations, the Bulgarians and the Serbs, deeply war-weary, will probably accept it joyfully. For twenty years only one will, that of the German Czar Ferdinand, has counted in Bulgaria.

The most important point of strategical significance in regard to these Middle States of East Europe is that the most civilised of them, Poland and Bohemia, lie in the North, in the position most exposed to Prussian aggression. Securely independent the Polish and Bohemian nations cannot be unless as the apex of a broad wedge of independence, extending from the Adriatic and Black Seas to the Baltic; but seven