roups of Teutons are ranged on
opposite sides, and that the Slavs enjoy the active support of Celts and
Latins also. That such a struggle has come, is in the last resort due to
the false conceptions of Nationality which underly the policy of the two
central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The freedom from foreign
oppression which the Germans so nobly vindicated against Napoleon has not
been extended to their own subject races, the Poles, Danes, and Lorrainers;
and recent years have seen the accentuation of a conflict the germs
of which may be detected as far back as the fatal crime of the Polish
Partition in the eighteenth century. The policy of Germanisation in Austria
has been gradually undermined by causes which it would take too long to
enumerate, but its sting has survived in the maintenance of a foreign
policy which treats 26,000,000 Slavs as a mere _annexe_ of militant
Germanism and as "gun-fodder" for the designs of Berlin; while in Hungary
the parallel policy of Magyarisation has increased in violence from year
to year, poisoning the wells of public opinion, creating a gulf of hatred
between the Magyars and their subject races (the Slovaks, Roumanians,
Croats, Serbs, etc.), and rendering cordial relations with the neighbouring
Balkan States impossible. Nor is it a mere accident that official Germany
and official Hungary should have pursued an actively Turcophil policy; for
the same tendencies have been noticeable in Turkey, though naturally in a
somewhat cruder form than farther west. Just as the Young Turk policy
of Turkification rendered a war between Turkey and the Balkan States
inevitable, so the policy of Magyarisation pursued by two generations of
Hungarian statesmen sowed the seeds of war between Austria and the Southern
Slavs. In the former case it was possible to isolate the conflict, in the
latter it has involved the greater part of Europe in a common disaster.

The struggle centres round the Austro-Serbian dispute. Let us then attempt
a brief survey of the two countries.

Sec.1. _Austria and the Habsburgs_.--Let us begin with Austria-Hungary. In
this country many misconceptions prevail regarding Austria-Hungary; nor is
this surprising, for it is unique among States, and whether we regard it
from a political, a constitutional, a racial, or a social point of view,
the issues are equally complicated and difficult to sum up. With the aid
of a good gazetteer it is easy enough to elicit the facts tha