I.
As regards Austria-Hungary the Berlin programme may be summed up as follows: to take advantage of the occupation of the territories of the Hapsburg Monarchy by the troops of William II. in order to impose, by all possible means, both on Hungary and on Austria, a series of measures called an economic union with Germany, which would leave Austria-Hungary an appearance of independence sufficient to throw dust in the eyes of the Allies, while at the same time it would in fact subject that empire absolutely to the will of Berlin.
So far, these tactics have not succeeded in putting on a semblance of legality. Since the outbreak of war, the Pangermans of Vienna have not even dared to summon the Austrian parliament, knowing very well that the Slav and Latin deputies would protest most vehemently against the subjection of their respective countries to the German empire. At present the Germans of Vienna, while they terrorize the Austrian Slavs and try to persuade them that the Allies have forsaken them, are striving to prepare a meeting of the Reichsrath which might seem to sanction all that has been done. But the reader will understand that it is no easy matter to get up this farce, when he learns that even the Magyars, who have linked themselves closely to Germany, are beginning to resist, now that Berlin is forced to disclose those measures of enslavement, of which Hungary must feel the effects, like the other States destined to pass under the Pangerman yoke. It is said that William II.’s great Magyar accomplice, Count Tisza himself, is protesting. At all events in the Pesti Hirlap of Budapest, of 12th April, 1916, we are assured that his friend, the Senator Eugène Rakosky, has just published the following lines, which are particularly significant:
“All this Central European ferment will have no other result than compelling the Hungarians to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Germans. They want us to make high roads for the Germans to the East. All these Central European alliances and unions mean nothing but that we are expected to sell our national soul and pass under the German yoke” (quoted by Le Temps, 19th April, 1916).
But the Allies should have no illusion on this head. The most vehement protests of the Magyars will be of no avail. The Germans are in occupation of Austria-Hungary and they have the power. They may disguise their enslavement of this vast empire under various formulas, such as extension of the Zollverein, economic union of the Central Empires, unification of the commercial laws of Austria and Germany, etc.; or they may even, as a subterfuge, to lull the fears of the Allies to sleep, give up the use of any positive formula, the final result will always be the same, the political seizure by Germany of the Hapsburg Monarchy cloaked under the decent pretext of economic measures.
To this object the Germans cling above everything else, because it has been the basis of the whole Pangerman plan since 1895, and the indispensable condition of achieving the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf,” as the reader will find explained, with the reasons in full, in my book published fifteen years ago, L’Europe et la Question d’Autriche au seuil du XXᵉ siècle; they cling to it, too, because Germany has made war for the very purpose of effecting at least this seizure of Austria-Hungary, which is absolutely indispensable to the plans of William II.
Nothing but the complete victory of the Allies can compel Berlin to renounce this plan of domination and liberate the non-German peoples of the Hapsburg Monarchy. Meantime the Germans are taking all possible precautions against such an event. We have seen (p. 93) how already, under their pressure, the Magyars are concerting with them the economic measures to be taken in view of that future war, which is to complete the results of a peace which Berlin already thinks bound to be “imperfect.” Accordingly, the Allies cannot have the faintest doubt as to the new war which as sure as fate will follow, sooner or later, from the economic and necessarily political union of the Central Empires. In Chapter V we saw that the certain consequence of this economic union would be:
1º. To secure to Germany the spoils of war and a trade monopoly over nearly 3 millions of square kilometres containing wealth untold.
2º. On the contrary, to leave the Allies to pay all their expenses in the war, which is equivalent to condemning their peoples to ruin.
3º. To make Prussian militarism more powerful than ever, since, radiating from the block of Central Europe, it could command an army of from 15 to 21 millions of soldiers.
4º. To give Germany the supremacy over the majority of essential strategic points on land and sea, which would provide Berlin with all the means for executing gradually and completely its plan of world-wide domination.
But it seems that these formidable consequences, which flow from the seizure of Austria-Hungary by Germany, have not yet been sufficiently understood in the Allied countries. That is the conclusion indicated by the following opinions which have been published in some French and English newspapers: “The declarations of Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade in the United Kingdom,” says Le Temps of 25th March, 1916, “prove that Great Britain is resolved to work without delay for the formation of an economic alliance against the powers of Central Europe.”
Mr. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, in an address at the Carlton Club, gave his hearers to understand that the German Empire must not be allowed to hope to reduce other countries to a state of commercial dependence upon it (see Le Temps, 23rd March, 1916). In consequence of these declarations an idea was formed of an economic understanding between the Allies in order, according to Le Petit Parisien, “to make an effective reply to the project of a Central Europe conceived by our enemies.”
M. Jules Siegfried, in a letter to the Temps, 3rd April, 1916, affirmed, with reference to this: “Germany, aware of the danger, is seeking to form a Customs-union with Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey. It is therefore necessary for us to guard against this danger.” Mr. Hewins, chairman of the Business Committee of the House of Commons, stated at London on April 6th: “But France and England, after their victory, will possess a preponderance over the Austro-German union which will enable them to dictate their tariffs, etc.” (see L’Echo de Paris, 7th April, 1916). M. Edmond Théry, in Le Matin of 13th April, 1916, discussing the same problem, concluded: “If, therefore, the Allied nations will erect simultaneously and under identical conditions a powerful Customs barrier between their respective home markets and the products of Germany and her accomplices, this of itself will suffice to strike a mortal blow at German industry, commerce, and credit.”
These declarations are amazing. How can the economic problem to be solved by the Allies be placed, even through an obvious “inadvertence,” on a basis so manifestly inaccurate? How, in fact, can we voluntarily admit the least connection between the economic conference of the Allies and the economic union of the Central empires, since that union is clearly in flagrant contradiction with the general object of the war, which nevertheless, the Allies are perfectly at one in pursuing? In fact, to keep repeating that the Allies must form an economic alliance of the Allies to compete after the war against the economic union of Central Europe, and to prevent the German Empire from reducing other countries besides Austria-Hungary to a commercial dependence on itself, this is, in strict logic, to assume that the Allies agree to let Prussianized Germany lay hands on the 50 million inhabitants of Austria-Hungary, which would secure for Berlin the means of carrying out her scheme of domination “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” But it is clear that this result is radically incompatible with the higher ideal aim of the war which the Allies propose as their goal, the aim which their governments incessantly proclaim, that is, the destruction of Prussian militarism.
There has therefore unquestionably been a mistake on the part of some French and English authorities, who are in other respects well qualified, in the way they have put the question and in the association of their ideas. This mistake is doubtless explained by the fact that in England loose ideas are still prevalent as to the Pangerman plan and Austria-Hungary. Many people on the other side of the Channel still imagine that the majority of the population of that Empire is German, whereas on the principle of nationalities, Germany could at most incorporate 7 or 8 millions of Germans at present subjects of the Hapsburg (see p. 126). These loose ideas prevalent in England are very difficult to eradicate. It is these ideas which are at the root of the mistakes made by our British Allies in regard to the Balkans and Salonika, whereas, on account of Egypt and India, England was more interested than all the other Allies in the rapid execution of that expedition.
Be that as it may, as the Allies cannot indulge in the sanguinary luxury of fresh serious blunders, it is necessary to show why the project of an economic understanding between the Allies should be absolutely independent of the Berlin project of a Central European Union.
In point of fact, if this separation is not clearly effected, it will entail the following baneful consequences, which will delay still further the victory to gain which the Allied peoples are making such gigantic sacrifices.
1º. To allow it to be understood in the newspapers of the Allies, even by inadvertence, that the Allies could possibly admit of the economic union which Germany intends to force on Austria-Hungary, would be to furnish the German newspapers with a cordial for reviving the fainting spirits of the German nation; for in that case the German journalists would point out to their people that they can still count on carrying out the main part of the Pangerman plan, which they regard as the essential object of the war.
2º. The German scheme of capturing Austria-Hungary in an economical net is radically incompatible with the pledges which the Allies have given to Serbia. In his toast to the Prince of Serbia, M. Poincaré declared: “Acting with the Serbian army, the Allies will liberate the Serbian territory, will re-establish the independence and the sovereignty of your noble country on a solid foundation, and will vindicate the rights which have been infringed” (see Le Temps, 23rd March, 1916). Now a mere glance at the map (p. 79) suffices to show that the capture of Austria-Hungary by Germany would render the fulfilment of that solemn promise impossible. Once in contact with the Balkans, Germany would be the mistress of these countries, and for Serbia that would be a sentence of death.
3º. To allow it to be supposed that the project of an economic union between Germany and Austria-Hungary could be even contemplated by the Allies, would be to give over to an agony of despair the 28 million Slav and Latin subjects of the Hapsburg Monarchy, who look to the Allies as their deliverers, and who, just because of their sympathies with the Allied cause, are subjected to the most atrocious persecution. There can be no doubt that the German press would catch at any ambiguous phrases in the utterances of the Allied press about the “economic union” of Central Europe in order to persuade these poor wretches that the Allies have forsaken them for good and all, and that there is nothing left for them, but to bow their neck to the German-Magyar yoke. But it is manifestly the political and military interest of the Allies at the moment to let the Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary know at once that they may rely on the Allies, and that the victory of the Allied cause would mean the end of their own serfdom. To attain that result of the war is unquestionably a moral duty for the Allies; but more than that it is in strict conformity with their own future interest, for the independence of 28 million Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary is absolutely indispensable to the establishment of a new and lasting Europe, founded on the principle of nationalities, and capable of forming at the same time in Central Europe a barrier, which Pangermanism in arms will for the future be powerless to overleap.
4º. Every mistake, or appearance of a mistake, as to the treatment which the Western Allies intend to mete out to Austria-Hungary would excite the liveliest protests among our Russian Allies. As M. Milioukoff well said in a speech to the Duma: “When we have wound up bankrupt Turkey, as we are now doing, it will be necessary to wind up another bankrupt concern, and that is Austria-Hungary. We are certain that the numerous nationalities which form part of the Dual Monarchy will receive their liberty at the hands of Russia” (quoted by Le Temps, 27th March, 1916). But the point of view set forth by M. Milioukoff, which is that of everybody who really knows Austria-Hungary (see p. 118), must be shared by all the Allies, since they intend to destroy Prussian militarism and clearly do not wage the most frightful of all wars for the purpose of seeing militant Prussia emerge from the struggle infinitely more powerful than she entered into it.
These many and forcible reasons make it clear how necessary it is that there should be no possible ambiguity in the Allied press as to the economic conference of the Allies. It is all very well for the conference to look ahead to the time when peace shall have been concluded, to take “concerted measures to counteract the dirty tricks by which Germany has compassed the destruction of her rivals,” to forestall fresh German depredations, in time of peace, on the financial establishments of the Allies, to prevent the Germans from manipulating the Custom-house tariffs, with all their usual dexterity, and so forth. This is all very well; nothing better; but on no account let there be, even in appearance, the least connexion between these theoretical measures of the Allies and the pretensions of Berlin to establish the economic union of Central Europe. Besides, as Mr. Lloyd George has said, with his robust good sense: “Before discussing the commercial system to be adopted after the war, we must first win the war. Everything depends on that” (quoted by Le Temps, 25th March). But the war will not be really won till every revival of aggressive Pangermanism shall have been rendered impossible; and this implies nothing less than the most energetic opposition to Germany’s attempt to capture the majority of the countries which actually compose the empire of the Hapsburgs.