Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/15

 fatal consequences of a policy which abandoned to Germany, besides the Slavs of Austria-Hungary, the other peoples of the Danubian monarchy and of the Balkans, including the Turks. An abdication which would infallibly have led to the subjection of England itself.

The error of this Anti-Russian policy of the West arose from the fact that no account was taken of the other Slav peoples, whom politicians regarded as too insignificant to have any place in great world politics—those famous world politics, imposing only in name! At present the Italians are the only ones who still fear the Slav danger. They accuse the Serbians of coveting the Adriatic, forgetting that that race has occupied the coast from time immemorial and possesses the most legitimate, historical and other rights to it. Moreover the Italians fear the intrusion of the Russians into the Mediterranean. Russia, whose prosperous industry round the Black Sea, chiefly centered at Odessa, is continually developing, has the greatest possible interest in securing the free passage of the Dardanelles. But why at once see a Slav danger in this legitimate aspiration?