Another school looks to the south-east and broods upon the day, not far distant, when the Germans of Austria-Hungary—a small but dominating minority of the whole population—will be driven, by reasons of self-defence, to seek a federal inclusion in the Empire of the Hohenzollerns. And it is surmised that for somewhat similar reasons the Magyars of Hungary will at the same time elect to throw in their lot with Teutons rather than with Slavs.
When that day arrives, however, it is not merely the German and Magyar territories of the Habsburg Emperor-King which will need to be incorporated in the Hohenzollern Empire, but the whole congeries of nations which at present submits, more or less reluctantly, to the rule of Vienna and Buda-Pest. There must be no break-up of the empire of Francis Joseph, no sentimental sacrifice to the mumbo-jumbos of nationality. The Italians of Trieste and Fiume, the Bohemians, the Croats, the Serbs, the Roumanians of Transylvania, and the Poles of Galicia must all be kept together in one state, even more firmly than they are to-day. The Germans of Austria will not be cordially welcomed, unless they bring this dowry with them to the altar of imperial union.
THE AUSTRIAN DOWRY
But to clear eyes, looking into the future, more even than this appears to be necessary. Austria will be required to bring with her, not merely all her present possessions, but also her reversionary prospects, contingent remainders, and all and sundry her rights of action throughout the whole Balkan peninsula, which sooner or later must either accept the hegemony of the German Empire or submit to annexation at the sword's point. Advantageous as it would be for the Fatherland to obtain great harbours for her commerce at the head of the Adriatic, these acquisitions might easily become valueless in practice if some rival barred the right of entry through the Straits of Otranto. Salonica again, in her snug and sheltered corner of the Aegean, is essential as the natural entrepôt for the trade of Asia Minor and the East; while there can be no hope, until the mouths of the Danube, as well as the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, are firmly held, of turning the Black Sea into a Germanic lake.
The absorption of the Balkan peninsula, involving as it must the occupation of Constantinople and European Turkey, would carry with it, as a natural consequence, the custody of the Sultan and the control of his Asiatic dominions. These vast territories which extend from Smyrna to the Caucasus, from Syria to the Persian Gulf, from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Aden, contain some of the richest and most fertile tracts upon the surface of the globe. Massacre, misrule, and oppression have indeed converted the greater part of these regions into a state hardly to be distinguished from the barest deserts of Arabia. But a culture which has lapsed through long neglect may be reclaimed by new enterprise. All that is required to this end is such shelter and encouragement as a stable government would afford.
What more suitable instrument for this beneficent recovery than the peculiar genius of the Teuton race? Would not the whole world gain by the substitution of settled order for a murderous anarchy, of tilth and industry for a barren desolation? The waters of Tigris and Euphrates are still sweet. It needs but the energy and art of man to lead them in channelled courses, quenching the longings of a thirsty land, and filling the Mesopotamian waste with the music of a myriad streams. The doom of Babylon is no curse eternal. It awaits but the sword of Siegfried to end the slumbers of two thousand years. Where great cities and an ancient civilisation lie buried under drifted sand, great cities may be raised once more, the habitations of a hardier race, the seminaries of a nobler civilisation.
This vision, more fanciful and poetically inspired than the rest, has already advanced some considerable way beyond the frontiers of dreamland. When the Turko-Russian War came to an end[[3]] the influence of Germany at Constantinople was as nearly as possible nil; and so long as Bismarck remained in power, no very serious efforts were made to increase it. But from the date of Bismarck's dismissal[[4]] down to the present day, it has been the steady aim of German policy to control the destinies of the Turkish Empire. These attempts have been persistent, and in the main successful.
THE WOOING OF TURKEY
It mattered not what dubious personage or party might happen to be in the ascendant at Stamboul, the friendship of Germany was always forthcoming. It was extended with an equal cordiality to Abdul Hamid; to the Young Turks when they overthrew Abdul Hamid; to the Reactionaries when they overthrew the Young Turks; to the Young Turks again when they compounded matters with the Reactionaries. The largesse of Berlin bankers refreshed the empty treasuries of each despot and camarilla in turn, so soon as proofs could be produced of positive, or even of presumptive predominance. At the same time the makers of armaments, at Essen and elsewhere, looked to it, that a sufficient portion of these generous loans was paid in kind, and that the national gain was not confined to high policy and high finance. The reform of the Turkish army was taken in hand zealously by Prussian soldiers. Imperial courtesies cemented the bricks which usury, commerce, and diplomacy had laid so well. At a time when the late Sultan was ill-regarded by the whole of Europe, on account of his supposed complicity in Armenian massacres, the magnanimity of the Kaiser took pity on the pariah, and a visit of honour to the Bosphorus formed an incident in the Hohenzollern pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre.
The harvest of these endeavours was reaped at a later date in the form of vast concessions for lines of railway running through Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. It is needless to enter here into a discussion of the famous and still unsettled controversy regarding the Baghdad route, except to say that this project for the benefit, not merely of Turkey, but of the whole human race, was to be realised under German direction and according to German plans and specifications; it was to be administered under German control; but it was to be paid for in the main out of the savings of England and France.