NEW MAP OF EUROPE
The arbitrament of war has changed the face of Europe. In the central and eastern portions of the Continent all national boundary lines have been recast. Some of the changes made are definite and final. Others are tentative and still await final definition. A multitude of conflicting claims have had to be adjusted, and the task is so colossal that months or years may elapse before the work of the various boundary commissions is completed. In cases where doubt existed as to the propriety of certain proposed changes, arrangements were made for a plebiscite whereby the people of the territory in question could determine by vote to what nation they wished to belong. In still other cases, cities, districts, and waterways were internationalized and placed under the control of the League of Nations. The general principle sought to be followed was that of self-determination of peoples and an opportunity for every nation to develop economic prosperity. The principle was of necessity modified in judging the Central Powers, where the question of reparation was a factor. Territorially, France and Poland have gained most heavily, while Germany and Austria-Hungary have been the greatest losers.
The one decision concerning which there was no question in the Peace Conference was the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine (1) to France, from whom it had been wrested by Germany forty-eight years before. The coal mines of the Saar Valley (2) region were given to France outright in compensation for the wrecking of French coal mines at Lens, and whether the region itself should be restored to Germany or remain attached to France was to be determined by vote of the inhabitants after fifteen years. The district covers 738 square miles. The sovereignty of Germany over Moresnet and the circles of Eupen and Malmedy (3) was relinquished to Belgium. The people of these circles could, if they chose, protest within six months this change of nationality. The territory in question covers 382 square miles. Parts of Schleswig (4) representing 2,787 square miles, formerly taken from Denmark by Prussia, are to determine their nationality by popular vote. The district is divided into three zones for this purpose. Poland (5) receives outright parts of Silesia, Posen, and West Prussia, with a total of 27,683 square miles. The city of Danzig (6) on the Baltic is made a free port under the supervision of the League of Nations. An area about the city aggregating 729 square miles is internationalized. Parts of East Prussia (7) and Upper Silesia (8) will have their destiny determined by vote of the inhabitants. By far the greatest sufferer in the new territorial adjustment is the former empire of Austria-Hungary (9), which from an area of 240,000 square miles was reduced to about 25,000 square miles. Part of this had been lost when Hungary (10) seceded from the Dual Empire shortly after the armistice was declared. Apart from the cessions to Italy, the new state of Czecho-Slovakia (11), four times as large as Belgium, and covering 48,000 square miles, has been carved out of the former territory of the Hapsburg Monarchy. The greater part of Jugoslavia (12), officially known as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, has also been formed from former Austro-Hungarian territory. The fate of the city of Fiume (13) is still undetermined, as is the final disposition of the Dalmation coast (14), the greater part of which, however, is certain to be assigned to Italy. The Trentino (15) and Istria (16), formerly part of the "Italian Irredenta," have been made definitely Italian. Thrace (17) has been taken from Bulgarian control and placed at the disposition of the Allies, and Bulgaria (18) has been compelled to rectify her frontiers at several points in favor of Serbia. Rumania receives Transylvania (19) and the richest part of the Banat of Temesvar (20). Bessarabia (21) was united with Rumania before the conclusion of the war. The Ukraine (22), one of the richest sections of the old Russian Empire, has seceded from the parent state. Finland's independence (23) has been recognized by the Powers. The group of what was known as the Russian Baltic Provinces, and whose problems are largely identical, Esthonia (24), Latvia (25), and Lithuania (26), have declared themselves independent republics. The truncated territory of the former Russian Empire is now under Soviet government with Moscow as capital. In the Near East, Georgia (28) and Armenia have set up a republican form of government, but their boundaries are as yet ill-defined.
Transcriber's note: the numbering in the text skips from (26) to (28)—there is no (27)! Also, there are no footnotes on the page to match the numbers.
As already stated in previous installments of this work, the Czecho-Slovaks were Slavic soldiers of the Austrian armies who had been taken prisoners by the Russians, and who, after the fall of the Czar, volunteered to fight against the Central Powers with the Allies because of their desire to obtain independence for Bohemia and Slovakia, parts of the dominions of the Austrian empire. They look a leading part in the offensive which Kerensky attempted against the Teutons, and which failed so disastrously on account of the broken morale of the Russians. When the Bolsheviki seized the reins of government, the Czecho-Slovaks refused to lay down their arms and asked that they might be permitted to retire from Russia by way of Vladivostok, whence they hoped to be transported to France and allowed to take their place with the Allies on the western front. To this arrangement the Bolsheviki agreed, and the Czecho-Slovaks began at once embarking on trains over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. But before even the first contingents had safely reached Vladivostok, friction broke out between them and the Bolsheviki, which presently took on the aspect of an armed conflict, with remarkably successful results for the Czecho-Slovaks, who gained almost complete possession of the railroad and large areas of Siberia.
The Bolsheviki maintained that Allied intrigues had caused the Czecho-Slovaks to turn on them, while the Allied representatives laid the blame to German pressure applied to the Soviet Government. Captain Vladimir Hurban, an officer of the Czecho-Slovak Army, who came to Washington to report to Prof. Masaryk, President of the National Council of the Czecho-Slovaks, supplies details which are not only of vivid interest in themselves, but assist in fixing the responsibility for the bloodshed which resulted in such advantages to the Allied cause.
"When the Bolshevist Soviet Government signed the peace treaty in the beginning of March, 1918," says Captain Hurban, in his personal narrative, "our army of about 50,000 was in Ukrainia, near Kiev.... The Germans advanced against us in overwhelming numbers and there was danger that we would be surrounded.... The Bolshevist Red Guards had seized the locomotives and were fleeing east in panic. Under these circumstances Emperor Charles sent us a special envoy with the promise that if we would disarm we should be amnestied and our land should receive autonomy. We refused to negotiate with the Austrian emperor.
"As we could not hold a front, we began to retreat to the eastward.... When we arrived at Bachmac the Germans were there waiting for us. There began a battle lasting four days, in which they were badly defeated and which enabled us to get our trains through. The commander of the German detachment offered us a forty-eight hour truce, which we accepted, for our duty was to leave Ukrainia. The truce was canceled by the German chief commander, Linsingen, but too late; our trains had already got away. We lost altogether about 600 men in dead, wounded, and missing, while we buried 2,000 Germans in one day.
"In this manner we escaped from Ukrainia. Our relations with the Bolsheviki were still good. We refrained from meddling in Russian internal affairs, and we tried to come to an agreement with the Bolshevist Government with respect to our departure, or passage through Russia. But already signs were visible that the Bolsheviki, either under German influence or because we then represented the only real power in Russia, would try to put obstacles in our way. It would have sufficed to order one of our regiments—our army was then, in March, near Moscow—to take Moscow, and in half a day there would have been no Bolshevist Government; for then we were well armed, having taken from the front everything we could carry, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans.... To prove indisputably our loyalty we turned over to the Bolsheviki everything, all our arms, with the exception of a few rifles (ten rifles to each 100 men). The equipment we turned over to the Bolsheviki, including arms, horses, automobiles, aeroplanes, etc., was worth more than a million rubles, and it was legally in our possession, for we took it away from the Germans, to whom it had been abandoned by the fleeing Bolsheviki. This transfer of the equipment was, of course, preceded by an agreement made between us and the Moscow Government by which we were guaranteed unmolested passage through Siberia, to which the Government pledged to give its unconditional support....