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86 To check these German and Magyar plans, the Czechs demand that a barrier against the German expansion towards the East be created in the shape of an independent Bohemia. This barrier would be strengthened by the free and united Yugo-Slavs and Italians, who, by cutting off the Germans from the Adriatic, would regain the possession of their natural rights. Finally, in the North the Poles would offer a ready hand to the Czechs and help them in barring the Germans from the road to the East.

This solution of the Central European problem evidently requires a reconstruction of the territories up to now held by Austria-Hungary. The principle of this reorganisation has been agreed upon ipso facto by the intervention of Italy and Rumania. Today the necessity of a dismemberment of Austria-Hungary is generally recognised in all the Allied countries, and has been officially acknowledged in the Allies Note to President Wilson of January 10th, 1917.

Thus a stable equilibrium in Central Europe would be constituted. Great Britain would be definitely secure against all German attacks, France would recover the province of Alsace-Lorraine, and would have devoted allies and sworn enemies of Teutonic hegemony east of Germany. Italy would find in the Central European States a vast field for economic expansion. Her desire