BOHEMIA AS A BULWARK AGAINST PAN-GERMANISM
From the foregoing chapters it is clear that:
(a) The Austro-Hungarian Government represents only the Habsburgs, and the Austrian Germans and the Magyars, who form a minority of the total population of the monarchy. The majority, consisting of Slavs and Latins, is opposed to the further existence of Austria-Hungary.
(b) The Austrian Germans and Magyars, who exercised their hegemony in Austria and Hungary respectively, will always be bound to look to Germany for the support of their predominance as long as Austria-Hungary in whatever form exists. The collapse of the Habsburg Empire in October, 1918, practically put an end to this possibility.
(c) The Habsburgs, Austro-Germans and Magyars, just like the Bulgars, became the willing and wilful partners of Prussia in this war, while the Austrian Slavs, especially the Czecho-Slovaks, have done all in their power to assist the Allies at the price of tremendous sacrifices. Under these circumstances, the only possible policy for the Allies is to support the claims of those peoples who are heart and soul with them. Any policy which would not satisfy the just Slav aspirations would play into the hands of Germany.
(d) The restoration of the status quo ante bellum of Austria or Hungary is out of the question. The Allies have pledged themselves to unite the Italian and Rumanian territories of Austria with Italy and Rumania respectively. The aim of Serbia is to unite all the Yugoslavs. Deprived of her Italian, Rumanian and Yugoslav provinces, Austria-Hungary would lose some twelve million Slavs and Latins. The problem of Poland also cannot be solved in a satisfactory way without the incorporation in Poland of the Polish territories of Galicia. If the status quo were re-established, the Czecho-Slovaks, whom Great Britain has recognised as an Allied nation, would be placed in a decisive minority and would be powerless in face of the German-Magyar majority. This the Allies in their own interests cannot allow. They must insist upon the restoration of Bohemia's full independence.
(e) The disappearance of Austria-Hungary therefore appears to be the only solution if a permanent peace in Europe is to be achieved. Moreover, as we have already pointed out, her dissolution is a political necessity for Europe, and is to-day already an accomplished fact.
The dismemberment of Austria does not mean a destructive policy. On the contrary, it means only the destruction of oppression and racial tyranny. It is fundamentally different from the dismemberment of Poland, which was a living nation, while Austria is not. The dismemberment of Austria will, on the contrary, unite nations at present dismembered, and will reconstruct Europe so as to prevent further German aggressive attempts towards the East and South-East. A close alliance between Poland, Czecho-Slovak Bohemia, Greater Rumania, Greater Serbia (or Yugoslavia) and Italy would assure a stable peace in Central Europe.
The issue really at stake was: Central Europe either Pan-German or anti-German. If Germany succeeded in preserving Austria-Hungary, the Pan-German plans of Mitteleuropa would be a fait accompli, and Germany would have won the war: the Germans would, with the aid of the Magyars and Bulgars, directly and indirectly control and exploit over one hundred million Slavs in Central Europe. On the other hand, now that Austria has fallen to pieces the German plans have been frustrated. The Germans will not only be unable to use the Austrian Slavs again as cannon-fodder, but even the economic exploitation of Central Europe will be barred to them.
From the international point of view, Bohemia will form the very centre of the anti-German barrier, and with the assistance of a new Poland in the north, and Italy, Yugoslavia and Rumania in the south, she will successfully prevent German penetration to the East, Near East and the Adriatic.