Racial Passions
It is in the very heart of Europe. Certainly the majority of the German people refuse stubbornly to accept the consequences of the defeat inflicted upon them as more than a temporary check to their strength and supremacy among civilised people. They are so conscious of their own genius in organisation and industry, so confident in the future destiny of the German folk, so sure that their increasing population is bound to prevail over the weaker and dwindling stock of a nation like France, that they are only waiting for the time when, as they think, the inevitable laws of history will carry them in a tide over the present barriers that have been imposed upon them. Meanwhile, they rage at the humiliations they have to suffer, and brood over the injustice of their present condition. Their sense of being the victims of world injustice is a fixed idea or what, in the present jargon of psycho-analysis, is called a “complex.” It is not less dangerous for that, and to regain their liberty of action, freedom from foreign interference with foreign occupation, and release from immense burdens of foreign debt, there are large numbers of Germans who would willingly die with a racial patriotism and passion exalted above all self-interest. Many old women in Germany would like to march with sharpened scissors behind the German troops. Many young girls would gladly go with their hatpins to stab a Frenchman or two in revenge for the Ruhr. Europe will not be safe until that racial hatred between France and Germany has died down or has been killed by a new spirit and a community of interests. Herriot, the democratic Prime Minister of France, was the first to offer a truce to that hatred, and the new spirit has begun to work a little on both sides of the Rhine, though it is a delicate growth which will need great encouragement. In Hungary, and to a less extent in Austria, racial passion is also smouldering, and could be quickly fanned into flame. The Hungarians are a proud fighting race, who feel themselves superior to neighbours like the Serbs and Roumanians occupying some of their ancient territory. “It will not always be like this,” some of them told me. “Something will break, and we shall move. Not all the tears of women will put out the red flame of that future war of liberation when we shall join hands with our kinsfolk and smash these artificial boundaries imposed by a scandalous peace.”
The Balkans are still a stewpot of racial passions and rivalries—Serbs, Bulgars, Montenegrins, Albanians, Roumanians, Greeks and Turks all snarling at each other, all waiting until the Great Powers get to grips again, or are too busy to intervene between these smaller nations.