Page:Namier The case of Bohemia (1917).pdf/8

 of these four nations—Germans, Magyars, Bulgars and Turks—have come under a common expert direction, and, wherever they are left a chance, will work in accord. All of them are instruments to enable the German master-nation to reach a further goal: a secure “sphere of influence” in Asia and Egypt. If this programme had not been developed in the middle of a world-war it would inevitably have provoked one. Arising firm and clear over the storm of battle, the watchword “Mittel-Europa,” which expresses the vision of ages and continents, has transmuted blustering passion into the fixed consciousness of an inexorable issue. This fight has now to be carried on beyond the limits known in any previous war; for it is truly a struggle for existence. The aims of “Mittel-Europa” are a menace to the future of all the Great Powers of the Entente. The Germanised Balkans threaten the British Empire in Asia, and Russia’s position in Europe; Russia would be deprived of her only possible sea-route to the West should the Straits be bridged by the German land-route to the East. France would be excluded from the Eastern Mediterranean; Italy, having lost her influence both in the Ægean and the Adriatic, would cease to rank as a Great Power. As for the races of the unredeemed lands, their very existence is imperilled by the basic requirements of Central European Union; not even the very modest measure of national self-government,