According to these figures there are 12 millions of Germans in the Hapsburg empire, but we shall see that not nearly all these 12 millions of Germans could be united to Germany. In fact:
1. As the table shows, rather more than two millions of Germans are in Hungary, where they are scattered in small groups among the other nationalities. They could not therefore be united to Germany.
2. Out of the 10 millions, roughly speaking, of Germans in Austria, those of Bohemia, to the north and north-west of the purely Czech zone, could not be united to Germany, because in that zone they are mixed up with numerous Czechs, and because the dotted line, which on the map (p. 68) separates Bohemia from the German empire of to-day, represents the historical and strategical boundaries of the kingdom of Bohemia. Now it would be impossible without these boundaries to assure the independence of the Czecho-Slovaks. Clearly we could not think of sacrificing nearly 9 millions of Czecho-Slovaks to 1 million of Germans in Bohemia, especially as these same Germans simply squatted in the country long ago by sheer violence and fraud.
3. By this fact the 10 millions of Germans, who might seem to be eligible for incorporation in Germany, are reduced to about 9 millions. These form on the map the blank group which stretches from Switzerland to the dotted line which marks the Magyar ethnographical boundary. But there are serious reasons for thinking that were a thorough investigation made of the ethnographical facts, that is to say, of the mixture of Slavs and Germans to the east of this group, and consequently between the purely Czech group to the north of Vienna and the purely Slovene group to the south of Vienna, the result of such an investigation would be to show that this German group could not in its entirety be united to Germany. As it would be out of the question here to enter into these very difficult ethnographical details, we shall, under all possible reserve, and purely for the convenience of demonstration, make the supposition that the whole of this German group should be united to Germany. But from these 9 millions of Germans we should certainly still have to subtract the Slavs who are included in this figure through the systematic garbling of the Austrian statistics. The typical example of the city of Vienna, cited above, proves this necessity. As this deception is practised on an enormous scale at the expense of the Slavs, we may allow that the true number of Germans in this part of Austria who could be geographically incorporated in Germany, amounts to not more than 7 or 8 millions. Let us take this last figure. If these 8 millions of Germans were incorporated in Germany, then Germany of to-day, reduced for the reasons indicated on p. 123 to 61 millions, would be enlarged, at the expense of Austria, by 8 millions of inhabitants. She would then have a total of 69 millions of inhabitants.
Therefore, as the present German empire had in 1914 a population of 68 millions of inhabitants, we see that the application of the principle of nationalities would allow Germany to gain on the south-west just about the equivalent of what the same principle would take from her on the circumference of the existing empire.
Would a Germany of 69 or 70 millions of genuine Germans be really dangerous for Europe? I do not think so, for, as we shall see, the application of the principle of nationalities would have the effect of withdrawing totally from the influence of Berlin’s Pangermanism all the rest of the inhabitants of Austria-Hungary.
In fact, if out of the 50 millions of inhabitants in Austria-Hungary of to-day about 8 millions joined Germany, 42 millions of Austro-Hungarian subjects would remain. Of this number:
Five millions of Poles would join Poland;
Four millions of Ruthenians would join Russia;