The German constitutional system is of its nature federal. There is room in it for many kinds of states, each possessed of a very great measure of independence, and if the inclusion within one commercial system and one military system also, however loose that inclusion, be called annexation, then we may say that Germany would annex in some degree. She would wish to control directly the Mouth of the Scheldt and probably the Teutonic-speaking part of Belgium, that is, the north of that country. She would certainly desire to administrate the Ardennes, which would be her frontier against France, and she would quite certainly take over Luxembourg.
As to Holland, her plan would probably be different there from that pursued in any other case. She would leave it as independent in its own eyes as it was before; she might insist upon an alliance with the Dutch army, she would certainly insist upon commercial terms, and probably rights of using certain ports in certain cases for war. But nothing but inexcusable folly would tempt her to go further. The position of Holland after a German settlement might not uncertainly be compared to the position of Hamburg in the old days, on a larger scale, a free State just as Hamburg was a free city.
This easy and, as it were, mutually arranged compromise with Holland, coupled with dominion over the Scheldt and Antwerp, would give the German peoples what they most desire, the whole littoral of the North Sea. Further, possessing Antwerp, as they would certainly possess it, they would have a commercial lever for keeping Holland in order. They could direct all their trade at will towards Antwerp to the starvation of Rotterdam.
The Scandinavian countries they would regard as naturally German in feeling, and as falling in a vague and general way into their orbit. Possessing the Kiel Canal, they would not strictly need the Sound. But they would so dominate Denmark that they could make what commercial or military terms they chose with regard to the passages of the Baltic; and you would have German firms, German methods, and to some extent the German language holding “civil garrisons” throughout the useful part of Sweden and Norway.
On the East some have imagined they would erect as against Russia a mutilated and dependent Polish State. It is more probable that they would confine themselves to procuring some liberty for Russian Poland, and obtaining some convention as to fortification and commerce. Russia will always be formidable, and to maintain the mutual bond of a subject Poland between Russia and herself would serve in the future, as it has served in the past, the ends of Prussia. It is essential to Prussia that no really independent Poland should re-arise, even mutilated. It is even essential that there should be no one area that the Poles could regard as the nucleus of a really free Polish State.
In the Balkans the Germanic Powers would certainly demand the control over what is now Serbia, and, at the risk of further war, the outlet at Salonika. The remnant of the Turkish Empire in Europe they already regard as being under their protectorate.
As to the West, they would, rightly, treat it merely as a defeated foe. France (they would say) might continue to decline—for the Germans, getting things out of Berlin, always talk of “the decay of the Latin peoples”—her decline accelerated by stringent commercial treaties and a heavy indemnity; England would be envisaged in the same terms. Germany would demand from England certain coaling stations; she would impose on England also certain commercial conditions. But there would be no need to restrict the building of a Fleet, for there a victorious Germany would feel easily able to look after herself.
MAP III. EUROPE REMODELLED BY GERMANY AND AUSTRIA
 | Boundary of Germanic Allies to-day, with their dependent States. |  | Holland, a special case. Kindred in speech. Not actually annexed, perhaps, but allowed only a quasi-independent position with German control, veiled, in the two principal ports, and facilities for German Navy. Also included in any economic policy. | |
 | Small districts which might be actually annexed: the Lower Scheldt, Middle Meuse, Ardennes, Luxembourg, a corner of French Lorraine, a few frontier districts of Russian Poland. | |||
 | Countries which would be dependent upon the Germanic hegemony, being of kindred blood and speech, and which would in special points admit actual economic or political control by Germans. |  | Districts in no way kindred to Germanic peoples, but to be annexed, or at any rate directly controlled in order to command the Balkans, to dominate Constantinople, and to get a passage to the Ægean Sea. | |
 | Buffer Polish States, which Prussia might erect dependent on herself and as a barrier against Russia. |  | District which German Empire might annex, both on account of its German elements in population, and on account of controlling the Baltic. |