Speaking on the annexation of those provinces to Germany he says:
"There is no money to be seized in the East but there is something which is of more value than cash and that is lands, lands of colonisation for new German peasants." And he points out that the Baltic provinces are about the same size as Bavaria and Württemberg, but in Bavaria and Württemberg there are eight and a half millions of inhabitants while the Baltic provinces support a little over two millions.
"The Baltic provinces have always occupied an important place in the thought and sentiments of the German people. The public as a whole does not inquire if it's true that only fifteen per cent of the population is German. For the public they are simply the German provinces of the Baltic and the German people are right, because since seven hundred years the proprietors of the land there are Germans and the civilisation has always been German."
Should Germany be allowed to seize these provinces, to increase her population and man power enormously, a second great war like this one will not be far off and Russia, deprived of what Peter the Great called "His window on the Baltic," will lose her place as an European Power.
The Germans will endeavour, during any peace negotiations, to keep their troops there in the hope that they will be permitted to occupy these provinces or that, if a vote should be taken to determine to which country the inhabitants wish to be annexed, the latter would be coerced through the German landlords, and by the use of money and terror made to appear as desirous of annexation to Germany.
Prince Münster, who had been in this section during the war, told me once how easy it was to observe that the more prosperous sections of the population were German and how anxious these people were to become Germans. In this case I think he was right to the extent that the feudal landlords of the Baltic provinces believe that as Prussian Junkers they would have a greater chance to continue to oppress the people than as Russian citizens, especially citizens of a new Russian republic.
The Allies must guard against any move which can add to the man power of the Central Powers, and this reason alone is sufficient reason never to permit the Arabs and Syrians, who have been so oppressed by the Turks, to suffer again under the rule of the Young Turks.
The world must not be disturbed again by Prussian dreams of world conquest, nor must Jerusalem and the Holy Land, towards which the eyes of all Christians have turned for twenty centuries, be voluntarily given back to the Turks.
To allow the Germans access to Bagdad is to invite trouble—a second attempt of the Kaiser to don the turban and proclaim a Holy War in the interest of the fat merchants of Hamburg and Frankfort.
If this were an old time war, when sly diplomats sat at a green table, exchanging territories and peoples like poker chips, we might consent to the partition and destruction of Russia as most natural. But this war is between two systems, and wars either will be continued or cease hereafter. We who hope for the end of war cannot permit Germany to add to her man power any part of the rapidly multiplying population of that great territory which we now call Russia.