| French | 3,000,000 |
| Belgians | 7,500,000 |
| Alsatians and Lorrainers | 1,500,000 |
| Italians | 800,000 |
| 12,800,000 |
Group 3. Vassals of Germany, possible rebels against the yoke of Berlin after the uprising of the first group—about 9,000,000.
Of 10,000,000 Magyars, there are—a fact not generally known among the Allies—9,000,000 poor agricultural laborers cynically exploited by one million nobles, priests, and officials. These 9,000,000 Magyar proletarians are exceedingly desirous of peace. As they did not want the war, they detest those who forced it on them. They would be quite capable of revolting at the last moment against their feudal exploiters, if the Allies, estimating accurately the shocking social conditions of these poor Magyars, were able to assure them that the victory of the Entente would put an end to the agrarian and feudal system under which they suffer.
Is not this a state of affairs eminently favorable to the interests of the Allies? Would not the Germans in our place have turned it to their utmost advantage long ago? Does not common sense tell us that if, in view of the pressure on their battle fronts, the Allies knew enough to do what is necessary to induce the successive revolts of the three groups whose existence we have pointed out, a potent internal element in the downfall of Pan-Germany would become more and more potent, adding its effects to the efforts which the Allies have confined themselves thus far to putting forth on the extreme outer circumference of Pan-Germany?
Let us inquire how this assistance of the 88,000,000 persons confined in Pan-Germany in their own despite can be obtained and made really effective.
Let us start with an indisputable fact. The immense results which the German propaganda has achieved in barely five months in boundless Russia, with her 182,000,000 inhabitants, where it has brought about, in Siberia as well as in Europe, separatist movements which, for the most part,—I speak of them because I have traveled and studied much in Russia,—would never have taken place but for their artificial agitation,—these results constitute, beyond dispute, a striking demonstration of what the Allies might do if they should exert themselves to act upon races radically anti-Boche, held captive against their will in Pan-Germany. Assuredly, in the matter of propaganda, the Allies are very far from being as well equipped as the Germans and from knowing how to go about it as they do. But the Germans and their vassals are so profoundly detested by the people whom they are oppressing in Pan-Germany; these people understand so fully that the remnant of their liberty is threatened in the most uncompromising way; they are so clearly aware that they can free themselves from the German-Turkish-Magyar yoke only as a result of this war and of the decisive victory of the Entente, that they realize more clearly every day that their motto must be, ‘Now or never.’
Considering this state of mind, so favorable to the Allies, a propaganda on the part of the Entente, even if prepared with only moderate skill, would speedily obtain very great results. Furthermore, the desperate efforts which Austria-Hungary, at the instigation of Berlin and with the backing of the Stockholmists and the Pope, was making to conclude peace before its threatening internal explosion, show how precarious German hegemony in Central Europe still is. The Austro-Boches are so afraid of the extension of the local disturbances which have already taken place in Poland and Bohemia, that they have not yet dared to repress them root and branch. Those wretches, to fortify themselves against these anti-German popular commotions, resort to famine. At the present moment, notably in the Jugo-Slav districts and in Bohemia, the Austro-Germans are removing the greatest possible quantity of provisions in order to hold the people in check by hunger. But this hateful expedient itself combines with all the rest to convince these martyrized peoples of the urgent necessity of rising in revolt if they prefer not to be half annihilated like the Serbs.
To make sure of the constant spread and certain effectiveness of the latent troubles of the oppressed Slavs and Latins of Central Europe, there is need on the part of the Allies, first of moral suasion, then of material assistance.
To understand the necessity and the usefulness of the first, it must be said that, despite all the precautions taken by the Austro-Boche authorities, the declarations of the Entente in behalf of the oppressed peoples of Central Europe become known to these latter comparatively soon, and that these declarations help greatly to sustain their morale. For example, President Wilson’s message of January 22, 1917, in which he urged the independence and unification of Poland, and his ‘Flag Day’ speech, on June 15, in which he set forth the great and intolerable peril of the Hamburg-Persian Gulf scheme, manifestly strengthened the determination of the Poles, the Czechs, and the Jugo-Slavs to free themselves at whatever cost from the fatal yoke of Vienna and Berlin. In addition, the constantly increasing power of the aeroplane enables the Allies to spread important communications broadcast over enemy territory.
First of all, it is essential that the three races which, by reason of their geographical situation and their ethnographical characteristics are indispensable in any reconstitution of Central Europe based on the principle of nationalities, and who consequently have a leading part to play in the centre of the Pan-Germany of to-day, should be, one and all, absolutely convinced that the victory of the Entente will make certain their complete independence. The Poles have received this assurance on divers occasions, notably from President Wilson, and very recently from M. Ribot, commemorating in a dispatch to the Polish Congress at Moscow ‘the reconstitution of the independence and unity of all the Polish territories to the shores of the Baltic.’ But the 11,000,000 Jugo-Slavs and the 8,500,000 Czechs have not yet received from the leaders of the Entente sufficiently explicit and repeated assurances.