es), a strip of eastern Silesia
from the upper reaches of the Vistula northwards, and a further strip of
territory in East Prussia, extending from near the fortress of Thorn along
the Mazurian lakes (in fact, the scene of the opening battles of the
present war). Polish extremists, however, not content with these
indubitably Polish districts, are already laying claim to the lower reaches
of the Vistula and to Danzig as the port of the historical Poland; and
there is a further tendency in certain Russian circles to regard the whole
province of East Prussia as part of the natural spoils of war. And yet it
is obvious that the annexation of Danzig,[1] one of the bulwarks of the old
Hanseatic League, and of Koenigsberg, the cradle of the Prussian Crown
and of modern German philosophy, would be a flagrant violation of that
principle of Nationality which the Allies have inscribed upon their banner.
The province of which Koenigsberg is the capital is to-day, whatever it may
have been in the twelfth century, as German as any portion of the German
Empire. Moreover, it is the stronghold of Junkerdom, that arrogant but
virile squirearchy which still forms the backbone of the old Prussian
system; and while it is doubtless the desire to undermine this caste
by robbing it of hearth and home that prompts such drastic schemes of
conquest, it cannot be too clearly realised that we should not only be
guilty of a monstrous injustice in lending our support, but should
be sowing the seeds of a new and even thornier problem than that of
Alsace-Lorraine. It would, moreover, be a superfluous injustice, since it
is perfectly possible to create on broad racial lines a new frontier at
least as natural as that which divides Russia and Germany to-day.

[Footnote 1: Strictly speaking, Danzig, though under Polish suzerainty till
1772, has always been a German town enjoying complete autonomy. It shares
the fame of Hamburg and Luebeck as one of the greatest of the mediaeval
Hansa towns.]

Such are the changes which an application of the principle of Nationality
involves. Let us then be under no illusions; they are changes such as can
only be extracted from a Germany which has virtually ceased to exist as a
military power--a contingency which is still remote to-day, and which can
only be attained by enormous sacrifices in blood and resources. It is only
by readjustment and compensation in other directions that the German nation
could be induced even to co