2º. The consequences of the Bukarest treaty, which in 1913 had erected automatically a formidable barrier against the Pangerman pretensions in the Balkans.
3º. The internal evolution of Austria-Hungary, which, because of the steady progress made by the Latin and Slav subjects of Francis Joseph, threatened shortly to free the Hapsburg Monarchy from the tutelage of Berlin.
THE THREE BARRIERS OF ANTIGERMANIC PEOPLES IN THE BALKANS AND IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.
The facts of the last two groups would have completed in Central Europe and in the Balkans the three anti-German barriers indicated on the map (see p. 43) by deep black lines. Now, these barriers would have hindered once and for ever the achievement of the Pangerman plan.
To parry these blows only one resource remained to William II., and that was war—“the national industry of Prussia,” as Mirabeau used to say, and his very pithy and apt remark has been too long forgotten.