Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/37

 body is beginning to see that these plans are not merely Utopian, since, unhappily, they have been realised to a certain extent.

The programme of the unification of the German nations, and of the formation into one bloc of all the Germans who are scattered among the various States, has made some progress since the 18th century. It has been successively extended from Central Europe to Asia Minor, and to a Germanised Mesopotamia. The constitution of a new German Empire and the Prussification of Germany have resulted in this aggressive imperialism, the principle underlying which is expressed in the phrase, “German Central Europe,” or better still, “Berlin-Bagdad.”

At first, like the Italians and the Slav nations, the Germans only aimed at German unification. But soon their ambition grew, and they began to covet neighbouring countries where there was a German minority or even mere German colonies. Thus it is that the Pangermanists preached successively the absorption of Austria-Hungary, Poland, the Baltic Provinces, the Balkans, and, lastly, Turkey in Asia, for, in