3º. To make Prussian militarism more powerful than ever, since, radiating from the block of Central Europe, it could command an army of from 15 to 21 millions of soldiers.
4º. To give Germany the supremacy over the majority of essential strategic points on land and sea, which would provide Berlin with all the means for executing gradually and completely its plan of world-wide domination.
But it seems that these formidable consequences, which flow from the seizure of Austria-Hungary by Germany, have not yet been sufficiently understood in the Allied countries. That is the conclusion indicated by the following opinions which have been published in some French and English newspapers: “The declarations of Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade in the United Kingdom,” says Le Temps of 25th March, 1916, “prove that Great Britain is resolved to work without delay for the formation of an economic alliance against the powers of Central Europe.”
Mr. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, in an address at the Carlton Club, gave his hearers to understand that the German Empire must not be allowed to hope to reduce other countries to a state of commercial dependence upon it (see Le Temps, 23rd March, 1916). In consequence of these declarations an idea was formed of an economic understanding between the Allies in order, according to Le Petit Parisien, “to make an effective reply to the project of a Central Europe conceived by our enemies.”
M. Jules Siegfried, in a letter to the Temps, 3rd April, 1916, affirmed, with reference to this: “Germany, aware of the danger, is seeking to form a Customs-union with Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey. It is therefore necessary for us to guard against this danger.” Mr. Hewins, chairman of the Business Committee of the House of Commons, stated at London on April 6th: “But France and England, after their victory, will possess a preponderance over the Austro-German union which will enable them to dictate their tariffs, etc.” (see L’Echo de Paris, 7th April, 1916). M. Edmond Théry, in Le Matin of 13th April, 1916, discussing the same problem, concluded: “If, therefore, the Allied nations will erect simultaneously and under identical conditions a powerful Customs barrier between their respective home markets and the products of Germany and her accomplices, this of itself will suffice to strike a mortal blow at German industry, commerce, and credit.”
These declarations are amazing. How can the economic problem to be solved by the Allies be placed, even through an obvious “inadvertence,” on a basis so manifestly inaccurate? How, in fact, can we voluntarily admit the least connection between the economic conference of the Allies and the economic union of the Central empires, since that union is clearly in flagrant contradiction with the general object of the war, which nevertheless, the Allies are perfectly at one in pursuing? In fact, to keep repeating that the Allies must form an economic alliance of the Allies to compete after the war against the economic union of Central Europe, and to prevent the German Empire from reducing other countries besides Austria-Hungary to a commercial dependence on itself, this is, in strict logic, to assume that the Allies agree to let Prussianized Germany lay hands on the 50 million inhabitants of Austria-Hungary, which would secure for Berlin the means of carrying out her scheme of domination “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” But it is clear that this result is radically incompatible with the higher ideal aim of the war which the Allies propose as their goal, the aim which their governments incessantly proclaim, that is, the destruction of Prussian militarism.
There has therefore unquestionably been a mistake on the part of some French and English authorities, who are in other respects well qualified, in the way they have put the question and in the association of their ideas. This mistake is doubtless explained by the fact that in England loose ideas are still prevalent as to the Pangerman plan and Austria-Hungary. Many people on the other side of the Channel still imagine that the majority of the population of that Empire is German, whereas on the principle of nationalities, Germany could at most incorporate 7 or 8 millions of Germans at present subjects of the Hapsburg (see p. 126). These loose ideas prevalent in England are very difficult to eradicate. It is these ideas which are at the root of the mistakes made by our British Allies in regard to the Balkans and Salonika, whereas, on account of Egypt and India, England was more interested than all the other Allies in the rapid execution of that expedition.
Be that as it may, as the Allies cannot indulge in the sanguinary luxury of fresh serious blunders, it is necessary to show why the project of an economic understanding between the Allies should be absolutely independent of the Berlin project of a Central European Union.
In point of fact, if this separation is not clearly effected, it will entail the following baneful consequences, which will delay still further the victory to gain which the Allied peoples are making such gigantic sacrifices.
1º. To allow it to be understood in the newspapers of the Allies, even by inadvertence, that the Allies could possibly admit of the economic union which Germany intends to force on Austria-Hungary, would be to furnish the German newspapers with a cordial for reviving the fainting spirits of the German nation; for in that case the German journalists would point out to their people that they can still count on carrying out the main part of the Pangerman plan, which they regard as the essential object of the war.