ns there will be sixty-five millions of
other Germans to support them, whilst the Catholic Tcheches and Poles
can only fall back on the support of abhorred and heretical Russia,
there is every reason to fear that the Slav must eventually come under
the economic and political control of the Austrian Germans--that is to
say, ultimately under the influence of the German Empire.

But it is not only the Slavs of the Austrian Empire that are
threatened by German absorption; that absorption has rapidly extended
to the Slav States of the Balkan Peninsula. On the south as well as on
the north of the Danube, Austria has been used as the 'cat's-paw,' or,
to use the more dignified expression of Emperor William, as the 'loyal
_Sekundant_' of the Hohenzollern. The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
in defiance of the Treaty of Berlin, was the beginning of that
Austrian _Drang nach Osten_ policy, the next object of which is the
possession of the Gulf of Salonica, and the ultimate object of which
is the control of Constantinople."

XVI.--GERMANY CONTROLLING TURKEY.[11]

[11] This was published in 1906.

"The absorption of Turkey is not a distant dream: it is very nearly an
accomplished fact. Twenty-five years ago Germany declared she had no
political stake in the affairs of Turkey. As recently as the
'seventies, Bismarck proclaimed in the Reichstag that the Eastern
Question was not worth the loss of one Pomeranian soldier.

To-day Germany is wellnigh supreme on the Bosphorus. She started by
sending military instructors, amongst whom was the famous General Von
der Goltz Pasha, and by reorganizing the Turkish Army on the German
model. She then sent her travellers, absorbing the commerce of the
country. She then sent her engineers, obtaining concessions, building
railways, and practically obtaining the control of the so-called
'Oriental' line. Finally, she became the self-appointed doctor of the
'sick man.' Whenever the illness of recent years came to a
crisis--after the Armenian and the Macedonian atrocities, after the
Cretan insurrection--Germany stepped in and paralyzed the action of
Europe. It was Germany that not only enabled Turkey to crush Greece
and to restore her military prestige: it was Germany that enabled her
to reap the fruits of victory.

For ten years Lohengrin appeared as the temporal providence, the
protector of Abdul Hamid. The Holy Roman Emperor appeared as the
saviour of the Commander of the Faithful. A Po