The present German Empire would therefore be reduced to 493,408 square kilometres and 58 million inhabitants. But this loss in the West would be far more than counterbalanced by that close union of Austria-Hungary to the German Empire, which would be none the less real because it would be disguised. On this reckoning Berlin’s influence would be exercised directly and absolutely over:
| Square Kilometres. | Population. | |
|---|---|---|
| German Empire curtailed in the West | 493,408 | 58,000,000 |
| Austria-Hungary | 676,616 | 50,000,000 |
| Total | 1,170,024 | 108,000,000 |
It is evident that a solid block of States, established in Central Europe under the direction of Berlin, would exercise, simply by contiguity an absolutely preponderant pressure on:
| Square Kilometres. | Population. | |
|---|---|---|
| The Balkans | 499,275 | 22,000,000 |
| Turkey | 1,792,900 | 20,000,000 |
| Total | 2,292,175 | 42,000,000 |
Therefore Berlin’s preponderant influence would be wielded, directly or indirectly, over 3,462,199 square kilometres and over 150 million inhabitants.
We now see clearly that in the end the dodge of the “Drawn Game” would lead in reality to an enormous increase of the German Empire, and to the achievement of the principal part of the Pangerman plan summarized in the formula “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” (p. 109 of original). What then would be the general position of Great Germany thus constituted?
“Having cut Europe in two, mistress of the Adriatic as well as of the North Sea, secure in her fleets and in her armies, Great Germany would be an incubus on the world. Trieste, the Hamburg of the South, would feed her in peace and revictual her in war. Her industry, equipped with plant of incomparable power, would flood with her wares those very countries which she now schemes so artfully to monopolize:—Holland and Belgium, which are already penetrated; Hungary, her client; Roumania, her satellite; Bulgaria, a broken barrier; Bosnia and Herzegovina, the portals of the East. And, beyond the Bosphorus, Germany would reach Asia-Minor, that immense quarry of wealth. The huge German railroad projected to run from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf without a break, would link Berlin to the Far East. Then would the Emperor William’s Brobdingnagian dream be fulfilled. Germany would rule the world by her might and by her commercial wealth. The state of things which then would exist might be described by slightly modifying what Metternich wrote of Napoleonic France: ‘The German system which to-day is triumphant is directed against all the great states in their entirety, against every power able to maintain its own independence.’”
Such are the words which I published fifteen years ago in my book, L’Europe et la Question d’Autriche au seuil du XXᵉ siècle, p. 353 (Plon, Nourrit, editeurs, Paris). A careful study of the Pangerman plan of 1895 had then convinced me that the whole future policy of Berlin would tend to carry out the plan laid down in the formula “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” In what I then wrote a few minute discrepancies may now be detected, but, unfortunately, the facts of to-day show that still on the whole my words correspond exactly with events. The dodge of the “Drawn Game,” which the Germans keep up their sleeve, hoping still to profit by the ignorance or the weariness of some of the Allies, would indeed have for its indisputable object the achievement of that huge plan.
The terrible danger which this would bring upon the Allies will be better perceived (supposing they fall into the trap laid for them) when we shall have demonstrated with precision, what would be the consequences for them if the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” were to succeed.